


Back to the Start

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Amnesia, Angst and Fluff, Hospital, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Paparazzi, Post-Canon, andrew doesn't remember neil, at least somewhat medically accurate, but neil won't accept that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-22 18:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13769985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: Andrew has been on his pro team for 6 months when he takes a ball to the head.  Neil flies to Boston to see him - only to find that Andrew doesn't remember him.





	1. Chapter 1

Neil sighed as he sank onto the couch in the stadium lounge, surrounded by his team.  He’d had a whole semester to get used to being the oldest player on the team, to his family being gone.  He thought he had been doing okay with it, surviving with texts and Skype and phone calls, until he spent the past two weeks of Christmas break with Andrew in Boston.  The whole flight today had been spent remembering the feel of Andrew’s hands hot on his skin, of their shared breaths, of Andrew shivering under his mouth.    
  
The other players were talking excitedly about the game that was beginning on the large TV.  Andrew’s team was hosting Kevin’s, only the second time the two had faced off as pros, and the game had been hyped all week.  Andrew and Neil had watched Kevin’s interview the night before on Exy Night in America from Andrew’s apartment.  Neil had spent the ten minutes grinning at Kevin’s well-practiced persona while Andrew drily commented what they both knew Kevin was really thinking.     
  
Neil smiled at the memory as the ball was served and the teams crashed into each other.  Andrew was comfortable in his goal, while Kevin was battling with an enormous backliner named Jasper Scott that Andrew mocked mercilessly.  Neil had watched the games enough to see how Scott’s extreme aggression masked sloppy technique.  Kevin had clearly picked up on the same thing, passing to himself off the wall to fire on Andrew.  Naturally Andrew teed off and slammed the ball all the way up the court, one of his strikers leaping to snag the ball out of the air.  The game continued, Neil barely able to hear the commentary due to the excited yelling of his teammates.  When Andrew was subbed out, Kevin finally scored before being ushered off the court himself.    
  
The second half started on a 3-3 tie.  Andrew’s sub allowed in another two goals before Andrew came back on and shut the goal down completely.  Kevin took his frustration out on the backliner, he and Scott both getting yellow carded before the final whistle.  Meanwhile, Boston’s strikers finally woke up and managed to get a few shots past Houston’s goalkeeper.  Neil was cheering with his team as the final score flashed up on the screen.    
  
He almost missed it.  He’d actually started to turn away, to reach for his phone to text Andrew his unwanted congratulations, when the flash of movement on the screen caught his eye.  Kevin’s fellow striker, in a fit of anger, had slammed the ball off the wall.  It wasn’t intended to be anything other than a vent of feelings, but the ball ricocheted hard off the wall and towards the pack of Boston players.    
  
If it had hit anyone else, it would’ve caused a severe bruise to the back or shoulder and maybe a lost week of playing time.  But when Neil saw the shortest player drop in a flash of blond hair, he was running for Wymack’s office before the announcers even began their stunned announcement that Andrew Minyard had just been hit in the head and was now unconscious on the court.  
  
*****  
  
Andrew startled awake, immobilized, surrounded by people he didn’t recognize with bright lights overhead instead of the dark night outside of the club.  He began thrashing, trying to turn over, needing to see if Nicky was all right.  Three people in strange uniforms surrounded him, talking to him, calling his name.  
  
“Nicky,” he finally gasped, then began to retch.  The board he was strapped to was turned onto it side while he vomited, cool hands pressing against his pounding head to stabilize him.    
  
He heard people around him muttering, Nicky’s name repeated, and some other names too.  One kept being said over and over but he couldn’t focus on it, couldn’t focus on anything when the light was so bright it hurt his eyes even through his closed lids.  
  
“We need to get him to the hospital for a scan ASAP,” a woman said, and he began struggling harder.  
  
“Nicky!” he yelled, and he didn’t know why his eyes were burning.    
  
“Who’s Nicky?” came a quiet voice.    
  
“His cousin,” said another, and that one almost sounded familiar.  He tried to open his eyes to see who it was but the brightness made him vomit again.  Fury surged.  He’d failed, he must’ve failed, those bastards must’ve gotten him.  
  
“Andrew,” came the almost-familiar voice again.  “Nicky’s fine.  He’s fine.  I can get him on the phone for you if you want.”  
  
“We need to move him,” the woman said, and the board he was on began to roll.  He tried to figure out what the man meant, why would he get Nicky on the phone when he had just been right here?  But before he could ask the motion of the board caused the pain in his head to flare, and the blackness swept him under again.  
  
*****  
  
Neil was pacing at the airport, barely able to hear Kevin over the roaring in his ears.  “He just got admitted into the neurology unit at Mass General,” Kevin was saying, but all Neil kept hearing on a replay in his mind was skull fracture, concussion, possible brain bleed.    
  
“Look, Kevin, they’re calling my flight.  Just…just stay with him.”  _Don’t let him die_.  
  
“I won’t leave him, I promise,” Kevin swore, and Neil ended the call and boarded.  He waited until the last second to put the phone in airplane mode, checking the flood of texts reflexively.  He kept reopening the thread from Andrew.  _Talk after the game junkie_.  Some part of him kept expecting the little dots to appear, another text to come through with some smartass comment, but though the phone vibrated again and again not once did Andrew’s screen move.  
  
*****  
  
Andrew resurfaced in a dim, quiet room.  There were two people with him, and it didn’t hurt so much to open his eyes.  The man; he should have recognized him; that tattoo on his face used to be the number two, but he couldn’t dredge up his name.  Somehow he knew that this man hadn’t been one of the ones who had hurt him.  So he kept still, trying to figure out where he was and where Nicky had gone.  
  
The woman noticed he was awake first and set down the chart she was holding.  “Andrew, I’m Doctor Kupra.  You’re in the hospital.  Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”  
  
“Where’s Nicky?” he asked, or tried to.  His throat was so dry nothing came out.  The doctor seemed to understand and she looked up over his head.  A third person Andrew hadn’t seen appeared over his shoulder, setting his heart racing as he struggled to keep his face as impassive as possible.  The woman held a glass with a straw up to him and he allowed himself to suck down some of the water.  He repeated the question.  
  
The doctor looked at the not-stranger and he answered, “Nicky’s in Germany with Erik.”    
  
But that didn’t make sense, it couldn’t, because Nicky had come home for him, for them.  He wouldn’t have left, not when they had one more year in high school.  “Did they kill him?” he asked dully.  The three people exchanged looks.  
  
“Did who kill him?” the doctor asked.  She moved to touch his leg under the blanket but he flinched away and she didn’t push it.  
  
“Those men at the club.  I tried to help, I tried to get there in time…” He didn’t know why he was talking, he was revealing too much, he needed to stop but not as much as he needed to know.  
  
“No,” the man said, “Nicky is fine.  You got there, you stopped them.”  But the man’s eyes were too bright and his voice was too thick and he was lying, he was lying, everybody always lied.  
  
“Mr. Day, may I speak with you out in the hall?”  The doctor’s voice was smooth, professional, but when the man followed her out with a searching look at Andrew, he knew Nicky must be gone.  He had failed.  
  
*****  
  
“You have got to be kidding me,” Neil snapped at the stone-faced woman behind the desk.  
  
“Family only,” she repeated.  
  
“I am his fucking family.”  But she remained unmoved as she turned back to her paperwork.  Neil turned away and dialed Kevin.  
  
“Where the hell are you?” Kevin answered.  
  
“Downstairs, the gorgon at the desk won’t let me up because I’m not family.”  
  
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.  Hold on.”  Neil could hear Kevin talking to someone, but not the words.  “The doctor’s calling down to the desk.”  The line went dead and Neil was left staring at the screen.  
  
A few minutes later he followed a harried nurse out of the elevator on the sixth floor to see Kevin standing with a woman in a lab coat in front of a closed door.  The woman introduced herself as Doctor Kupra; Kevin must have explained who Neil was because she didn’t ask, just began explaining.  It was hard to focus, with Andrew hidden behind that door, with words like “fracture” and “subdural hematoma” floating in the air.  “In some ways, Andrew is fortunate in that the nature of the skull fracture prevented the hematoma from putting excessive pressure on his brain.  We were able to drain it nonsurgically.  At this point, we will be monitoring him closely.  We may still need to go in there to provide decompression.”  
  
Neil nodded like he understood.  “And how is he?”  
  
“So far, he seems to be neurologically intact.  He retains normal movement and sensation in all his limbs and he can speak.”    
  
“Neil,” Kevin said, then hesitated.  “I don’t think he recognizes me.  He keeps asking about Nicky, he thinks Nicky’s dead.”  
  
“What, like from the club?”  Kevin nodded.  “So does he have amnesia or something?”  He almost laughed, it was such a ridiculous idea that Andrew’s perfect memory could be compromised, but Dr. Kupra’s face was serious.  
  
“That’s a possibility,” she said.  “Mr. Day here was just giving me some information about Mr. Minyard’s history, and it does seem that he may be dealing with some memory loss.  He’s certainly disoriented and gets distressed easily.”  
  
Neil pulled out his phone.  “Did you try face-timing Nicky?” he asked.  
  
“Not yet,” Kevin said.  “It’s really early in Germany.”  
  
Neil shot him a look.  “Are you kidding?  You really think Nicky’s going to care if you wake him up?”  Shaking his head he began texting quickly.  It took only a few seconds to get Nicky’s response.  “He’s up.  We can do this whenever.”  
  
The doctor nodded.  “Let’s see if he’s awake,” she said.  “Mr. Josten…He may not recognize you.”  
  
“I understand.”  
  
“He’s been agitated by anybody touching him.”  
  
“I can imagine.  Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.  I know him.”  
  
With that, Dr. Kupra opened the door.  
  
*****  
  
Andrew didn’t remember falling asleep, but the quiet click of the door jolted him awake.  The resulting stab of pain in his head had him sinking back into the pillows, squeezing his eyes closed as nausea surged.  
  
“Why is he in restraints?”  That voice…it tickled something in his chest.  He dared to open his eyes again, squinting cautiously.  The nausea did not return.  The man and the women from before were in the room.  With them was another man, and he must have been the one who had spoken.    
  
“He kept trying to get out of bed,” the woman in the white coat said.  The man flicked her an irritated look and turned back to Andrew.  
  
“Drew,” he said, coming closer.  “If we free your arms, will you try to get up?”  
  
Andrew looked down in surprise; he hadn’t even realized that there were velcro straps tying him to the bed’s rails.  His armbands were gone, his scars exposed.  They looked strangely faded.  He looked back at the man, at the piercing blue of his eyes, vibrant even in the dim light.  “Nicky,” he said.  “Will you tell me what happened to Nicky?”  
  
The man gave him a soft smile and looked down at his phone, pressing the screen before holding it to his ear.  Andrew didn’t understand his expression, it looked…fond.  Nobody ever looked at him like that.  His chest itched, but he couldn’t move his hands to scratch it.  
  
“Nicky,” the man said into the phone, “Andrew needs to talk to you.”  He pulled the phone down, pressed the screen again, then held it out to Andrew.  And there Nicky was, and he was crying but he seemed okay, he seemed whole.    
  
“Andrew,” Nicky said.  
  
“Did they hurt you?” Andrew demanded, or tried to, but his voice was still so weak.  
  
“I’m fine, Andrew.  I’m fine.  You stopped those bastards.”  Nicky hiccoughed.    
  
“Where are you?”  
  
“I’m in Germany,” Nicky said.    
  
“How the hell did you get to Germany?”  It didn’t make sense, it didn’t add up.  
  
 Nicky hesitated.  “Neil?” he asked.  The man holding the phone turned it away from Andrew, touched the screen and held it back to his ear.    
  
“I know.  I know.  Nicky, it’s going to be all right.  I’ll call you later, okay?”  
  
He put the phone in his pocket and faced Andrew again, holding his hand over Andrew’s wrist.  “I want to undo your restraints.  Yes or no?”  
  
Andrew nodded despite the pain in his head, but the man didn’t move.  “Yes.”  
  
Slowly, the man - Neil, he assumed - reached down to pull apart the velcro, carefully not touching his skin.  As soon as his right hand was free, Andrew moved to undo his left but the man, Neil, said, “Let me do it, you shouldn’t move so much.”    
  
He walked around the bed rather than lean over, and waited until Andrew said, “Yes,” again before undoing the other strap.  “Are you one of Nicky’s friends?” he asked; even as the words were leaving his mouth he wondered why he cared.  
  
There was a flash of something that might have been pain across the man’s face. “Yes, Andrew,” he said, and his voice broke, just a little. “I’m one of Nicky’s friends.” The other man, the taller, darker one, gave the stranger’s shoulder a squeeze.  
  
Andrew closed his eyes as the tempo of the pounding in his head increased. He started to drift, and recognized that feeling though he couldn’t recall ever feeling it before. A tiny part of him was panicking at the idea of being drugged, of being at the mercy of these strangers, but before he could protest he was swept under.  
  
*****  
  
Neil sat on the window ledge, leaning against the closed blinds while machines silently monitored Andrew’s vital signs. Kevin had finally headed back to his hotel once it was clear Andrew was going to sleep for a while. His team was due to fly out in a few hours, but he was going to try to stay an extra day or two.  
  
The doctor had told Neil not to worry; that transient amnesia in the hours after a head injury was common; that it would likely resolve over the next couple of weeks. But Neil had googled it after everyone had left, and the transient amnesia usually only affected a couple of weeks before and after the injury. Andrew had lost almost seven years.  
  
Seven years, five of them with Neil. Five years of shared keys and cigarettes; of bared scars, and slow acceptance, and mapping each other’s minds and bodies. All gone in the strike of a ball. And now, in the quiet and the dark, Neil could only wonder what if.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More fun at the hospital. There is depiction of a panic attack, and a common way of helping someone through them. More notes at the end.

“No.”    
  
Andrew woke up to someone’s back in front of him, blocking him from something or someone.  The bed he was in had rails, and he was covered in unfamiliar blankets; the hospital.  He remembered this from before.  He breathed in for a count of four, and out for a count of four.  It felt automatic, but he didn’t know why.   
  
“I need to examine him, sir.  You have no right to block me from my patient.”  Andrew could only see the woman’s white-coated arm, but he could hear her impatience.  
  
“And you need to understand that you can’t just start touching him when he’s asleep.”  The man’s voice was quiet but sharp; there was a warning in it.  Andrew shifted a little, and the movement drew their attention to him.  The man glanced over his shoulder and caught Andrew watching him.  
  
“Andrew, this is Doctor…”  
  
“Martin.”  
  
“Doctor Martin.  She would like to examine you, yes or no.”     
  
Andrew squinted at him a little, wondering if that would turn this stranger into something logical but it didn’t seem to.  He couldn’t be real.  Andrew would’ve thought he was a hallucination from the head trauma if it weren’t for the fact that the doctor appeared to be hallucinating him too.  “Yes.”  
  
The man nodded, and turned back to the doctor.  “Tell him what you’re going to do before you do it.  Give him a chance to say no if he needs to, do you understand?”  The young woman held his eyes for a long moment before nodding and turning to Andrew, looking slightly rattled.    
  
The exam involved a lot of following directions and moving his limbs and on the whole wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.  It didn’t give him much of a chance to study the man who somehow seemed to know what he needed.  He was oddly exhausted afterwards; he blinked and when he opened his eyes again the room was empty.  He should’ve been happy about that fact.  
  
The peace didn’t last long.  A wave of people came in, led by the strangely stubborn man who planted himself by Andrew’s shoulder and crossed his arms.  The doctor from the night before stood at the head of the group and listened while Doctor Martin began talking in a rushed way.  
  
“Patient is Andrew Minyard,” she started, and a tall man at the back muttered, “Whoa.”  Everyone ignored him.  “Twenty four year old male.  Presented thirty two hours ago after suffering a blunt force trauma to the head resulting in a basilar skull fracture and a subdural hematoma.  On presentation patient was unconscious and bradycardic…”  
  
Andrew had been absorbing the report but abruptly pulled back to the introduction.  What the hell?  Twenty four year old male.  Twenty four.  Twenty four.  He could feel his heart starting to pound, and his mouth went even drier. This couldn’t be right; he was seventeen.  He was seventeen, and living with Nicky and Aaron…and Nicky was in Germany, he suddenly remembered.  
  
“Patient currently has no motor deficits and only slight sensory deficits.  Primary deficit in mentation appears to be a retrograde amnesia…”  
  
“Andrew?”  It was the stranger’s voice, but he wasn’t really a stranger, was he.  “Andrew, breathe.”  Everybody turned toward him, and the doctor from the night before, why couldn’t he remember her name, came into his sightline.  
  
“Mr. Minyard.  Andrew.”  He met her eyes.  “Tell me three things you hear.”  
  
He had to think, and it sort of hurt, but he forced out, “My breathing. Someone’s clicking a pen. There’s a scratching, like writing.”  
  
“Very good.  Tell me three things you see.”  
  
“You.  The bed.  The door.”  
  
“Good, good.  Tell me three things you feel.”  
  
He had done this before, he realized.  That was odd, but he was sure of it, and that certainty was soothing.  “The blanket on my legs.  The pressure behind my eyes.  The tape on my arm.”    
  
She nodded and glanced at the machines behind him, looking satisfied.  “We’re going to move on with our rounds, Mr. Minyard, and then I’m going to come back in about fifteen minutes, okay?”  He might’ve answered her but he wasn’t sure.    
  
Everyone filed out except the one persistent man, who sat down in the chair next to the bed and pulled out his phone.  “Shit,” he muttered.  
  
“What?”   
  
“I forgot to charge my phone, it’s almost dead.”  He looked around for a plug, and Andrew used his distraction to discreetly catalogue him.  He was almost startlingly pretty, despite what looked like ritual scarring on his face or maybe even partially because of it.  Andrew dug his nails into his palms; this was no time for that bullshit.  
  
“You know me,” Andrew said once the man was settled back into his chair.  
  
“I know you.”  His expression was piercing, in defiance of the calmness of his tone.  
  
Andrew refused to feel guilty for not recognizing him.  “Stop looking at me like that.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
 _Like I’m worth something, like I matter_.  “Like I’m some kind of answer.”  
  
The man dropped his eyes, turned slightly away.  “I am not your answer, and you sure as fuck aren’t mine.”  He said it under his breath, to himself really, and Andrew didn’t understand.  
  
Looking down at his lap, Andrew realized that his arms were in full view, all the narrow parallel ridges of his scars on display.  He crossed them, ignoring the pull from the IV, trying to hide as much of his skin as possible though there was probably no point.  There was no chance it hadn’t been noticed; no doubt it was now in his medical chart for dozens of strangers to see and question.  
  
The man began to fidget in his chair, tugging at his clothes, and Andrew tried to come up with something snarky to say.  The words died on his lips when a small pile of black cloth dropped into his lap.  They were just like his own armbands, and they were warm from the other man’s body.  He pulled them on surreptitiously, and if the man noticed his staring afterwards he didn’t comment on it.  
  
He must have fallen asleep again, because hushed voices woke him.  “I don’t know what I can tell him without getting him upset.  I don’t think he remembers the conversations yesterday, I think that’s why he had the panic attack.”  The room was empty but the door was open, they must have been in the hall.  
  
“Mr. Josten, this is not unusual following such a severe concussion.  It can impact not just past memories but the ability to make new ones for up to a couple of weeks.  I know this is hard to see right now, but he’s really doing remarkably well.”   
  
“But what if it doesn’t come back?”  The anguish in that voice sounded so familiar.  Andrew tried to chase it, but all he could recall was a single word, Don’t, before sleep overcame him again.  
  
*****  
  
Neil felt like his chest was cracking open.  “But what if it doesn’t come back?”    
  
Dr. Kupra’s face was sympathetic.  “You need to be patient.  It’s not just the concussion, he’s been heavily medicated as well, and we had to sedate him three times before you got here.  All of that affects his memory as well, but it’s all transient.”  
  
“That doesn’t answer my question.”  
  
“We’re going to be tapering his pain meds over the next twenty four to forty eight hours.  That will give us more of an idea.  Try to get some rest, Mr. Josten, he’s going to be here for a while.”  
  
As she walked into another room in the Neuro ICU, Neil turned to Kevin, who had remained remarkably quiet during the whole discussion.  “It’s amazing how many words they can say to avoid telling you they don’t know.”  
  
“Yeah.”  Kevin handed Neil a bag from Dunkin’ Donuts.  “I wasn’t sure if you’d had anything to eat today yet.”  
  
“Thanks.”  He hadn’t; he had barely eaten the day before either.  He checked his watch and was surprised to see it was almost noon.  He peeked into the room; Andrew was still asleep.  “I’m sorry he hasn’t been awake to see you.  Not that it would make much difference.”  
  
“Neil, it’s going to be all right.”    
  
Anger flared.  “Don’t say that, Kevin.  Don’t say that when we don’t know.”    
  
Kevin shook his head.  “I don’t mean it’s going to be easy, but you’ve been through worse than this.  You’ve survived worse.”  
  
Neil slammed the heel of his hand into the wall behind him.  “Fuck you, Kevin.”  He managed to keep his voice low enough to not draw the attention of the nurses down the hall.  
  
“Listen to me,” Kevin insisted.  “I’ve known him longer than you have.  You don’t see how much you’ve helped him.”  
  
“That doesn’t do any good when he doesn’t remember any of it.”  
  
“Let me finish.  You heard the doctor, they had to sedate Andrew three times in the six hours it took you to get here.”  He paused, trying to see if Neil understood.  “Three times.  Have they had to sedate him since?”  
  
“No,” Neil said, drawing out the word.  
  
“Exactly.  He might not remember your name, but he’s still more…settled with you here.”  Neil absorbed that.  Nodded.   Kevin gave him a small smile.  “I’m going to go sit in the lounge and watch some film.  Text me when he wakes up.”  
  
Neil flopped back into his chair and unwrapped the bagel sandwich Kevin had brought him.  Andrew didn’t so much as twitch, his face calm, breathing regular.  As he chewed, Neil studied his face, the dark bruises around his eyes.  Neil didn’t totally understand how he’d gotten two black eyes if he was hit in the back of the head but had been assured it was normal.  He was getting sick of that word.  Nothing about this was normal.    
  
He answered texts for a while, then set his phone down, his eyes twitching from fatigue.  Scooting his chair even closer to the bed, he reached towards Andrew, needing so desperately to touch him but stopping himself a few inches shy.  He settled for letting his hand rest on the bed, feeling the heat radiating off Andrew’s body and the small puffs of his breathing.  It was enough for now.  
  
*****  
  
Andrew wasn’t sure how long he had been watching the man sleep.  Long enough to memorize the scars on his hand, the strange pale circles that crept up under his sleeve, punctuated by straight, deliberate lines.  He should’ve been upset about the man’s nearness, but he wasn’t, and he wondered if the lack of fear was a symptom of the concussion.  Or maybe just because the man could’ve touched him, but hadn’t.  It was too hard to think so he stopped.  
  
Blue eyes flickered open and met his, and a slow, soft smile spread across the man’s scarred face.  “Hey,” the man whispered.  An image teased at the back of Andrew’s eyes, this face but not the same, leaning over the back of a seat, late afternoon sunlight setting auburn hair aflame.  This expression causing an ache in Andrew’s chest.  
  
“You had a tattoo,” Andrew said, surprising himself.  He hadn’t consciously realized it before it came out of his mouth, but now that he said it he was certain.  
  
The man blinked and bolted upright.  “Yeah, I did.”  The hope in his eyes made Andrew recoil.  He had no right to look at him like that, no right at all.  Andrew reached for the armor he’d built around himself years ago but it wasn’t there, and the panic began to flare.  
  
There must have been some sort of warning in his eyes because the man pulled back slowly.  “Kevin wanted me to let him know when you woke up, if that’s okay.”  Andrew struggled to put a face to that name and gave up, shrugging acquiescence.  The man’s thumbs flew over his phone and he stuffed it back into his pocket.  
  
Andrew thought he remembered the tall man who came in a few minutes later.  A “2” instead of the chess piece on his cheek.  Kevin.  A bloody hand, a leg trembling next to his.  He looked down and could see fine irregular lines on the back of the man's left hand.  There was something else, something more, but it slipped away from him.  “I, uh, I called Aaron,” Kevin said, and Andrew’s eyes shot up to his.  “He’s going to try to come up after class on Friday.”  
  
“Come up?” Andrew said.    
  
“Yeah, he’s in New York.”    
  
Andrew mulled that over, but his head was starting to ache again.    
  
“I have to fly back tonight,” Kevin said.  Andrew wasn’t sure why he sounded apologetic, but then he realized he was talking to the other man.  “And, uh, Neil, you probably shouldn’t go outside for a while.”  
  
Neil.  That was his name.  Neil.    
  
“What?  Why?”   
  
“The press is camped out, I had to have the taxi drop me off in the parking garage.”  
  
“Shit.”  Scarred hands rubbed over a scarred face.  “Does his team know?”  
  
“How the hell would I know that?”  
  
“No, I mean…”  
  
Kevin shrugged.  “They didn’t say anything on the court.  If he hasn’t told you, I would assume not.”  
  
Neil glanced at Andrew.  “I’m going to go make a couple of calls.”  He waited a moment before leaving, and Andrew realized belatedly he had been expecting some sort of a reaction.  
  
Kevin took Neil’s vacated seat.  “How are you doing?”   
  
“I have lost my mental faculties but am perfectly well.”  
  
“The fuck?”  Kevin blinked at him.  “Did…did you just quote Emerson at me?”  Andrew gazed at him calmly, pleased that he had picked up on it.  Kevin gave a humorless laugh.  “You can quote Emerson, but you can’t recognize Neil.  God damn.”  
  
“If someone would just explain it to me.”  
  
“We have,” Kevin said.  “A couple of times.”  
  
Oh.  He waited, and Kevin sighed.  “We played Exy together, you and me and Neil.  Aaron and Nicky, too.  For four years, at Palmetto State.”  This sounded right, Andrew knew it was true, but he couldn’t remember it.  Usually remembering was easy; memories came in full color and sound, sometimes even smell.  This felt more like he had read it in a book, like if he turned the page he would already know what was on the next one, but he couldn’t manage to turn the page.  And the next page was important, of that he was sure.  
  
“And what about now?”  
  
“You and I are on pro teams.  You’re in here because you got hit in the head with a ball.”  
  
He should’ve known the stupid sport would kill him one day.  “And Neil?”  He was still trying to piece together the man’s steady presence.    
  
“Neil’s still at PSU, but he’ll go pro next year.”    
  
Andrew waited for more; there had to be more to the past seven years than Exy.  “Are you together?” he prompted, after a long silence.   
  
Kevin stared at him in shock.  “Me and Neil?  Oh, no.  No.”  
  
It didn’t seem such an unreasonable question to Andrew.  The men were obviously close, they were both here, wherever this was.  The alternative didn’t make sense.    
  
The alternative was impossible.  
  
Before he could think about it further, there was a knock on the open door and a woman in scrubs entered and introduced herself as Nancy, his physical therapist.  She asked permission before doing anything, and Andrew thought back to that morning, to the man - Neil - standing guard in front of him and demanding that courtesy.  
  
It was impossible, but still he wondered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of falling asleep and waking up in this fic, and that's deliberate. In the interest of full disclosure, I have had a TBI with some associated memory loss (mine was mostly anterograde, meaning it affected my ability to make memories for a while afterwards). It was nowhere near as severe as Andrew's, but much of this depiction is personal.
> 
> I have a crazy schedule so I'm going to try to get this all written and posted fairly promptly but make no promises.
> 
> And thanks so much for the feedback! I love seeing my inbox full of comments, and I will try to reply to all of them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The return of Neil's attitude problem and a difficult memory. TW for another panic attack.

Neil missed the satisfaction of snapping his flip phone shut.  He was exhausted, and as much as he loved his Foxes family, having to talk to and text everyone all day wasn’t helping.  Especially since he couldn’t bring himself to tell them that Andrew still didn’t recognize him.  Wymack could obviously tell there was more to the story than Neil was letting on, but he didn’t push.  Neil had two weeks before the first game of championships to get this shit sorted out.  
  
He stopped at the nurse’s station to ask if Andrew was allowed to have ice cream, and one of them promised to bring some with dinner.  When he reached the room he halted in the doorway; Andrew was walking around the room with the cautious support of Nancy the physical therapist.  Neil felt a grin stretch his face, then schooled his expression when Andrew noticed him.  Judging by the annoyance in those hazel eyes, he hadn’t corrected it soon enough, but he didn’t care.  
  
When Nancy left, Kevin packed up his laptop and followed her out, grabbing Neil’s arm and dragging him into the hall.  “Andrew asked me about how we know each other.”  
  
“What did you say?”  
  
“The same thing the doctor told him before, basically, minus all the horrible medical details.  But he, uh, he asked about you.”  
  
Neil felt his heart rate pick up.  “What did he ask?”  
  
Kevin rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor.  “Um, he asked if we were together.”  
  
That didn’t really surprise Neil; he had suspected that Andrew had been interested in Kevin at some point.  “You and him?”  
  
“No, me and you.”  
  
Neil laughed and Kevin flushed.  “What did you tell him?”  
  
“What the hell do you think I told him?  Of course I said no.”  He met Neil’s eyes.  “But he was wondering.”  Kevin thumped Neil on the shoulder once.  “I’ve gotta go if I’m going to make my flight.  Talk soon?”  Neil nodded and Kevin was gone.  He wanted to talk to Andrew, to see what he was remembering, but he was already asleep.  
  
Neil was working on the assignment his professor had emailed him when he heard a soft knock on the door and looked up to see a middle-aged man he recognized as one of Andrew’s coaches peering into the room.  Andrew hadn’t budged, so Neil got up and shooed the man back into the hallway, mostly closing the door behind them.  
  
The coach was looking at him in consternation.  “Aren’t you Neil Josten?”  
  
“Yes.”  Shit.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  
  
“I came up to help Andrew.”  
  
“Yes, but why?”  
  
Neil looked at him levelly.  “He has a traumatic brain injury.”  
  
“I know, but why are you here?”  
  
“Because he’s in the ICU, I can’t exactly help him from South Carolina.”  
  
The man gave up.  “Well, I’d like to see him.”  
  
“He’s sleeping, as I know you just saw.”  The coach crossed his arms and glared at him. Neil didn’t budge.  “You want me to wake him up when he’s recovering from a serious head injury?”  
  
“What are you, his guard dog?”  
  
Neil put on his father’s smile.  “Something like that, yes.  I’ll be happy to take your number and let you know when he’s up for visitors.”  
  
“Aren’t you a visitor?” But the coach pulled out a small pad and jotted his number down.  
  
“No.  I’m his guard dog, like you said.”  Neil took the piece of paper and stuffed it in his pocket.  
  
The coach shook his head.  “I guess they weren’t lying about your attitude problem.”  
  
“No, they weren’t.  I’ll be in touch.”  
  
Andrew was awake when he went back in the room, and Neil wondered how much he had heard.    
  
“Who was that?”   
  
Neil pulled the paper out of his pocket and squinted at the scrawl.  “Coach…Estrogen?  That can’t be right.  Estrejena.  Wow.”  He looked up at Andrew.  “I may have just ruined any chance of being signed by your team next year.”  
  
“Was that something you wanted?”  Andrew sounded bored, which was so familiar it was almost a relief.  
  
“I wouldn’t have minded.”  Understatement of the year, but Andrew didn’t need to know that.  “He wanted to talk to you.  Do you want me to call him back up?”  
  
“No.  I don’t know who he is.”  
  
“You don’t know who I am either.  Do you want me to leave?”  _Say no_.  
  
Andrew looked at him impassively.  “No.  Apparently I need a guard dog.”  
  
Neil’s answering grin was his own.  
  
*****  
  
Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.  
  
He was in a hospital bed, he couldn’t walk without assistance, he kept falling asleep with no warning, his right eye was twitching, he couldn’t remember more than flashes of his entire college education, and he was peeing into a bag strapped to his leg.  He could not also be falling for a pretty boy with a smart mouth and the aggression of an eight-pound terrier.  
  
Even if said pretty boy kept looking at him like that.  Especially since he kept looking at him like that.  
  
Anger surged, and with it a spike in the pain in his head.  He turned away, facing the wall.  How dare this strange man sit there with affection on his face?  And stand up to the medical staff and that coach and fight on Andrew’s behalf, like he actually gave a shit?  He didn’t need that, he didn’t need him.  He couldn’t need him.  Because last time…  
  
Fuck.  
  
A nurse interrupted, bearing a tray of food, everything soft and lukewarm and easy to chew.  There was even a paper cup of ice cream.  Andrew picked at the meal with his fingers, avoiding Neil’s gaze.  The nurse looked at him in consternation.  “Do you want help with your silverware?” she asked.  
  
“No.”  He looked straight at her as he picked up some of the macaroni in his fingers.  She looked to Neil, so Andrew did too, out of the corner of his eye.  Neil stared back at her expressionlessly, daring her to comment again.  With an eye roll Andrew could just about hear she checked a couple of his monitoring devices and left.  He did at least use a spoon for the ice cream.  
  
The rest of the evening was filled with doctors and nurses and then he was wheeled away for another scan of his head.  He didn’t remember the previous ones, but the noise from the machine was so loud he was pretty sure his skull was splitting along the fracture.  For once he was happy for the morphine dose he received afterwards.  Neil was reading on his phone and Andrew watched him through his lashes until he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore.  
  
Fuck.  
  
*****  
  
Once Andrew was well and truly asleep, Neil left to find food.  At some point he was going to need to head to Andrew’s apartment to shower and change, because he was getting pretty rank and he hadn’t brought clothes or toiletries or really much of anything.  He’d rather talk to Andrew about that first though, even if he didn’t know he had an apartment.  
  
On his way back from downing what might have been the most disgusting hamburger he’d ever eaten - and that was saying something - he found Dr. Kupra just leaving Andrew’s room.  “Oh, Mr. Josten, I was looking for you.  Mr. Minyard is sleeping, but I wanted to review his scans.”  Neil nodded, and she tapped the tablet in her hand to show him the images.  
  
There was something oddly intimate about seeing Andrew’s bones and brain in various shades of white and gray, even if Neil had no idea what he was looking at.  Dr. Kupra was patient, showing him the initial scans, then the follow up one, then this one.  Side by side, he could see the differences in the pictures and he felt a small fraction of the tension in his body ease.  
  
“He’s doing well, the physical therapist is pleased with his status, and all indications are that he will continue to improve.  But it’s going to be a while before he can be discharged.  You may want to go home, get some real sleep.  You need to take care of you, so you can keep taking care of him.”  
  
There must be a manual of meaningless advice medical-types had to memorize before getting their degree.  He didn’t think Dr. Kupra would be impressed with how spectacularly bad Neil was at taking care of himself, so he nodded and slunk back into the room.  As quietly as he could he gathered his messenger bag.  Before he left, he stood watching Andrew, waiting for him to wake up, to tell him to stay.  But Andrew slept on.  
  
He didn’t know how to get to Andrew’s apartment on public transportation, so he called for a cab from the hospital lobby.  There seemed to be an excessive number of people in the pickup area, so he pulled his hood over his head and slipped unnoticed into the waiting taxi.   
  
The driver gave him a friendly smile in the rearview mirror.  “Guess there must be a celebrity in the hospital, eh?”  He gestured to the cluster of people and Neil realized that they all had cameras.  “I wonder who.”  
  
“No idea,” Neil said with a shrug.  “You have a busy night?”  
  
The man accepted the redirection and chattered harmlessly, pulling up in front of the unassuming brownstone and accepting his payment with a wave.  Neil let himself into the third-floor apartment with a mixture of sadness and relief.  He hated being here without Andrew, when just a couple of days ago they had been lazily entangled on the couch.  The shower was a welcome relief, and he sank into the bed that smelled of them both and pulled Andrew’s pillow into his arms.  
  
*****  
  
The room was empty when Andrew woke up.  He told himself it was a good thing that Neil wasn’t there.  It was too risky to become dependent on anybody, no matter how well-meaning; nobody was strong enough for that.  He knew how much baggage he was carrying.  The problem was, he didn’t know if Neil knew, and there was no safe way to ask.  
  
Doctor Martin came in and did her thing, asking before each step.  Oh, fuck.  The man had to know something, or he wouldn’t have ensured that; Andrew wasn’t naive enough to think this was routine.  
  
Maybe that explained the soft expression he kept seeing on that too-pretty face.  He knew Neil had never hurt him, though if that was a gift of memory or just obvious he wasn’t sure.  Maybe Neil had a thing for lost causes.  He wouldn’t be the first who thought Andrew could be “healed,” whatever that meant.  
  
The doctor left, and Andrew found himself craving a cigarette.  He wondered if he still smoked.  Probably not, if he was a professional athlete.  Either way it wasn’t like he could do anything about it in here.  The trapped feeling was intensifying; he should’ve asked the doctor how long he was going to be stuck here.  Then again, it wasn’t like he could apply for parole, there was nothing he could do when he still got dizzy if he stood up.  
  
A memory surged, in full HD this time; a familiar middle-aged man with flames tattooed on his arms.  A woman, maybe his wife, with a first aid kit.  A hotel room crowded with people; Nicky and Aaron, and Kevin too, and others whose faces he knew.  And Neil…Neil was there but he was hurt, his face and arms were bandaged and his voice wracked with pain.  _Don’t_.  The memory faded before he knew what had happened and why, but he could still taste his old grief and guilt and fury.  He touched his wrist, half expecting handcuffs, but encountered only the soft cloth of his armbands.  
  
Nicky had been there; he could call Nicky, and find out what - who - had broken Neil so badly.  A nurse came in with his breakfast and frowned at the monitor.  “Are you uncomfortable?”  He shook his head, barely tracking, half of him still in that dingy hotel.  “You’re due for some pain meds but I know you’re tapering down.”  
  
“My phone,” he said.  “Can I have it?”  
  
“Oh.”  She looked surprised by the request.  “I don’t think you came in with one, but I’ll check.  Is there something you need, someone I can contact?”  He shook his head again and she settled the tray in front of him.  “Well, I’m sure your young man will be back soon.  The night shift told me he went home to get some rest.”  She frowned again at his expression.  “Are you sure you don’t need any pain meds?”  
  
He shook his head again; he wanted to shout that Neil wasn’t his, that he didn’t even know him.  But part of him knew that Neil preferred eating fruit over anything else; that he didn’t dance and rarely drank; that he lit cigarettes but didn’t smoke them.  His fingers knew that Neil’s body was covered in scars, the pattern of the ridges and the unnatural smoothness of them.  
  
Curling up, he put his face in his arms and his hands registered the bandage on his head with shock.  He tried to breathe in for four, out for four, but the air caught in his throat.  Black spots were forming in front of his eyes, then someone touched his arm and he lashed out.  There was a crashing sound, and pounding feet and more voices; then hands, too many hands on him pressing him down and he was fighting, _not again, not again, not again_.  
  
A voice roaring, “What the fuck is going on in here!” had everyone freezing, even Andrew briefly.  “Get away from him, Jesus Christ.”  Grips loosened and Andrew lashed out, freeing himself, but he still couldn’t draw air.    
  
Neil shoved his way through and dropped to his knees next to the bed, holding out his hand.  His face went from vicious to soft, steady, in an instant.  “Don’t touch me,” Andrew gasped out.  
  
“I know, Drew, I won’t.  But you can touch me.”  
  
Andrew hesitated but he was starting to get dizzy, and he grabbed Neil’s hand, squeezing until he felt the bones creak.  The contact allowed him his first full breath.  “Three things you hear,” Neil whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments, they give me life!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angry protective Neil. Nicky helps Andrew remember. And doctors aren't infallible.

It was bad enough that he’d been spotted by the fucking paparazzi.  Neil hadn’t thought to warn the cab driver, so she had pulled up right in front of the hospital and he’d forgotten to pull his hood up to hide his face.  One photographer had spotted him, and they descended on him like a pack of wolves.  He had been wishing for Andrew’s knives by the time he made it into the lobby.  
  
He really wanted them when he walked into a clusterfuck in Andrew’s room.  Two men and a woman were pinning an utterly panicked Andrew down, while Dr. Martin looked to be drawing up some sort of drug into a syringe.   Fury burned through him, and he yelled something, he didn’t know what, loud enough to get everyone to back away.  Slipping in what looked like oatmeal on the floor he made it to Andrew, and then that strong hand was in his and he wanted to crumple at the touch but he couldn’t.  He remembered how Dr. Kupra had aided in Andrew recovering from his attack the day before, and went through the same ritual.  
  
Once Andrew was, well, not exactly calm, but breathing easier, Neil whirled on the doctor.  Andrew released his hand and he immediately missed the warmth.  “Where is Dr. Kupra?” he asked, and even he could hear the deadly edge to his voice.  
  
“She’s in surgery.”  
  
“I need to talk with her as soon as she’s available.”  Dr. Martin fled.  Neil watched one of the nurses as she began cleaning up the mess.  When she finally left, he turned back to Andrew, whose face had returned to its usual false indifference.    
  
“Can I ask what happened?”  
  
“A memory.”  
  
There were too many that could have triggered a panic attack for Neil to know which it might have been.  Before he could decide whether to pursue it, Andrew said, “I wanted to talk to Nicky but apparently I don’t have a phone.”  
  
“You do, but it’s probably still at the stadium.”  Neil pulled his out of his coat pocket and held it out.    
  
Andrew took it and gave Neil a look.  “An iPhone?  Seriously?”  
  
Neil grinned.  “You picked it out.”  On a different day Andrew’s stone-faced reaction to that news would’ve been amusing, but Neil couldn’t suppress the sick feeling in his gut.  The conflicted emotions in Andrew’s eyes might be hard for someone else to read.  Not for him.  He cleared his throat. “If you’re set, I’m going to go figure out why the hell a group of trained professionals can’t follow basic instructions.”  
  
“Why do I feel like making people cry is one of your specialties?”  Neil laughed in spite of himself and Andrew made a shooing motion.  “Be gone with you.  Let me call my cousin in peace.”  
  
Neil left, pausing in the doorway to look back and earn himself an exasperated glare.  There was a nurse waiting for him in the hallway.  “It was my fault,” she said.  Neil looked up into her kind, sad eyes.  “I’ve been off the past three days.  I saw the alert on his chart, but when he got upset I just acted automatically.  Most head trauma patients find touch grounding.”  She shrugged helplessly.    
  
“Are you the one who then decided to manhandle and sedate him?” Neil asked.  
  
She shook her head.  “As soon as he knocked over his tray everybody else came in.  I think they were worried he was going to hurt me.”  
  
Neil shrugged; he had no response to that, or at least nothing that wouldn’t get him thrown out of the hospital.  He wasn’t totally sure who was to blame but he was going to find out.  Unfortunately Dr. Martin seemed to have disappeared.  The other nurses all avoided his eyes, going about their business like he wasn’t there.  Back at the room, he looked through the window and saw Andrew on the phone, so he continued down the hall.  Not really paying attention, he shoved through a door and found himself in a quiet stairwell.  He started to turn back, but stopped; this presented a solution to a problem.  As much as he hated running stairs - he liked going somewhere when he ran - there was little other opportunity to exercise in his current situation.  He couldn’t afford to lose much conditioning, and his brain could use the chance to settle into the familiar routine.  Sighing, he jogged in place for a moment then headed up the stairs.  
  
*****  
  
Andrew stared at the screen of Neil’s phone, still a little baffled by the ease with which he had handed it over.  Of course the idiot didn’t have the damn thing password protected.  The wallpaper was a photo of a group of people in white and orange, Neil, Andrew, and Aaron in the front with Kevin behind Andrew, Nicky behind Aaron, and half a dozen other people arranged around them. Andrew knew all these people.  He knew them, had played with them and lived with them for years and yet he didn’t recall their names.  
  
Nicky’s name was the second one in the call log.  He picked up on the second ring.  “Neil!  How’s your boy?”  
  
Andrew had no idea what to do with that opening.  “It’s Andrew.”  
  
There was a pause, then Nicky said, voice cracking, “Andrew?  You’re all right?”  
  
“I remembered something, and I want you to tell me what it means.”  
  
“Okay, yeah.  Sure.  Anything, you know that, I’m just so glad you called.”    
  
“We were in a hotel room with a bunch of people, and Neil…”  Andrew trailed off, suddenly not wanting to know the answer to his question.  He looked down at the hand in his lap, thinking about how well his knuckles knew the feeling of sinking into flesh, how ill-suited his calloused fingers were for gentleness.  “Neil was in rough shape.”  
  
“Oh, that.”  Nicky sounded serious.  “Did you ask Neil about it?”  
  
“I’m asking you.”  
  
He could hear Nicky sigh through the phone.  “Yeah.  So, after one of the championship games, Neil went missing?  It was his freshman year, and we knew he wasn’t really who he said he was, but we didn’t know what that meant.  Anyway, he disappeared in a riot after the game, and early the next morning Coach got a call from the FBI that he’d been abducted by his father, and found in a raid.  He’d been tortured pretty bad, and his father had been killed.  He was supposed to go into the witness protection program, but he wanted to stay with us.  What you were remembering, that was when they brought him to see us, they were still hoping to get him into the program I think but you said no.  Well, we all did, really, since he didn’t want to do it.”  
  
Andrew closed his eyes, trying to remember, to see the truth of this, but it wasn’t there.  He would have to trust that Nicky wasn’t lying.  Swallowing down the bitter taste of that, he asked, “So all the bandages?”  
  
“Well, you’ve seen his scars, obviously.  They burned his face and arms with a dashboard lighter, and cut him up.  They were going to kill him, but like I said, there was a raid.”  
  
Anger surged anew.  Killing someone to protect someone else, he could understand that impulse.  He had never regretted sabotaging Tilda’s car, and had made damn sure he’d been in it instead of Aaron that night.  But to torture someone; to hurt them on purpose over and over; he knew too well what it was to be on the receiving end of that.  “You said his father was killed?”  
  
“Yeah, there’s articles about it online if you google it.  Neil has his own Wikipedia page, though I think you’ve changed about half of it.”  
  
Andrew was quiet for a long time.  By some miracle, Nicky was too, until finally he said, “You still there, Andrew?”  
  
“Why was I handcuffed?”  _If I wasn’t the one who hurt him_.    
  
Nicky snorted.  “Because FBI agents are cunts, that’s why.  You kept trying to leave, you wanted to go look for Neil because they wouldn’t tell us which hospital he was in.  So they threatened to take you into custody, and Coach had them cuff you to him instead.”  Andrew absorbed that.   Nicky went on, wonder in his voice.  “It was kind of funny, you know?  Funny strange, I mean.  Until then I hadn’t even known you were gay.”  
  
Andrew’s stomach bottomed out.  “What.”  
  
“Don’t tell me you forgot that too.”  
  
“Fuck you, Nicky.”  He could feel the edges of Neil’s phone digging into his hand and forced himself to soften his grip.  “It’s who I am, it’s not something I can forget.”  
  
“Exactly.”  Andrew blinked; he didn’t know that he’d ever heard Nicky sound like this, so settled, so sure.  He had never had Nicky push him.  “Exactly, Andrew.”  
  
They ended the call soon after.  Andrew ate his breakfast and spent some time afterwards scrolling through Neil’s phone, trying to build a whole person in his mind from pictures and music and search history.  There were dozens of text threads, and he seemed to be a common theme as he flipped through them.  Person after person asking how he was, Neil’s brief, hopeful updates.  It was a little overwhelming.    
  
One text caught his eye; Neil had sent _Fuck off you asshole_ to someone named Jack.  He opened that one to see what had triggered that response.  _yr a terrible captain putting yr bf before yr team_.  He considered sending a reply of his own but his head was starting to ache and his eye was spasming again.    
  
Clicking the phone off, he leaned back against the pillows.  The lights were only a little brighter than they had been the day before but they were like knives into his brain.  He dropped his arm over his eyes and tried not to think.    
  
*****  
  
Neil didn’t know how long he spent in that stairwell before he gave up on outrunning his thoughts.  He returned to the sixth floor just in time to see Dr. Kupra leaving the elevator wearing scrubs, talking seriously to a man in a lab coat.  The man nodded and peeled off down another hallway and Neil approached, falling in step next to her.  
  
“Mr. Josten!  Is everything all right?” she asked, alarmed.  
  
He had forgotten that he was sweaty and breathing hard and no doubt red-faced from his run.  “I’m fine,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, “but I need to talk to you about Andrew.”    
  
She nodded.  “Of course.  I need to speak with another family and I’ll be right with you, if you’ll take a seat?”  He realized they had arrived at a waiting alcove and that there was an anxious family and a few other people seated on the various chairs.  A vending machine sat against the far wall and he bought himself a bottle of water and sat down to wait.    
  
His eyes kept straying to the family Dr. Kupra was talking to.  It was amazing how he could learn everything important without hearing a word of the conversation.  Watching the terror and uncertainty in their faces turn to cautious hope, then full-on relief.  Seeing how the woman pulled her daughter into a hug, tears streaming down their faces, and the man wrapped his arms around them both.  There were smiles and nods and as Dr. Kupra was turning away they pulled apart shakily, dashing the wetness from their cheeks.  
  
This was what Andrew had deserved but never had.  
  
The doctor joined him, sitting down with an empty chair between them.  “What did they tell you about what happened this morning?” he asked without preamble.  
  
“I’d like to hear your version first,” she said.  
  
He ran his fingers through his sweaty hair.  “I had gone to Andrew’s apartment, like you suggested.  When I got back, he was having a panic attack and being held down by three people.  It looked like Dr. Martin was going to give him something, I assume a sedative.”  He shook his head.  “But he settled down just fine with your three things trick.  Your turn.”  
  
“They told me he seemed agitated, then he turned violent towards one of he nurses who was trying to help him.  They restrained him and yes, did plan on sedating him until you arrived and prevented them.”  
  
Neil gave a humorless laugh.  “I want a different resident assigned to him,” he said.  Dr. Kupra looked at him impassively.  “I don’t know what else I need to do here.  I told everybody that he has a fear of being touched.  I even told you why, though if he found that out he’d probably never forgive me.  I’ve walked the physical therapist and most of the nurses and Dr.  Martin through asking him for consent, and he has been completely cooperative as long as those guidelines are followed.”  She still didn’t react, and he wanted to shake her.  “Is it policy here to manhandle people who are having a panic attack?”  
  
“No, it’s not.  But it’s not unusual to restrain and sedate people who are becoming violent.”  
  
Neil stood up abruptly, needing to move before he lashed out verbally.  He started to walk away, then spun on his heel and sat back down.  “Are you telling me that it’s acceptable for your staff to compromise care of one of your patients because they can’t follow instructions?  Are you seriously…” He clenched his fists and relaxed them slowly.  “Andrew would never hurt someone other than himself unless he thought he had to defend himself or someone he cared about.”    
  
“Mr. Josten, I understand why you’re upset.”  
  
“Don’t give me that bullshit non-answer.”  
  
She raised a hand.  “Let me finish.”  There was steel in her tone now.  “I understand why you’re upset, and I will see what steps we can take to make sure that nothing like this happens again.  I think perhaps we underestimated the severity of Mr. Minyard’s reaction, in part because, as you said, he’s been cooperative.  But I am reluctant to assign a different resident to his case for one simple reason: Dr. Martin is our only female senior resident, and I assigned her on purpose because of Mr. Minyard’s history.  I thought he would be more amenable to being examined by a woman.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Even before you got here, we had received his medical history from Palmetto State.  We already knew what he had been through, though of course we appreciated hearing it from you as well.  Friends and family are often more…illuminating than medical records, and that has certainly been the case with you.”  
  
Neil deflated.  “I just need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.  Honestly, if everybody had just backed off and someone had talked to him, he never would have reacted like he did.”  
  
“I will review it again with all the staff,” she said.  “Now, can I ask you a question?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Why are you all sweaty and out of breath?”  
  
He laughed, looking down at the floor before meeting her eyes.  “I was running the stairs.  I’m still in the middle of my season, I can’t lose too much fitness or I’m going to be in trouble.”  
  
She gave a small smile.  “Were you aware that there is a gym in the basement?”  He shook his head, feeling like an idiot.  “I can give you a guest pass if you like.”  
  
“Thank you, I would appreciate that.”  He rose to leave.  
  
“Mr. Josten?”  He turned back.  “He’s lucky to have you.”  
  
Neil felt the corner of his mouth twitch up.  “Everybody says that.  But you don’t understand.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
He thought of Andrew’s racket coming down in front of him after breaking Riko’s arm; of his broad hands, gentle on his injuries, worshipful of his scars, and a steady weight on his neck during panic attacks; of their shared yeses and his hand under Neil’s pillow and the way his eyes gleamed in the sun.  Neil traced the outline of the key to the house in Columbia in his palm and smiled, small and soft.  “How backwards you all have it.  Nobody understands that I’m the lucky one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you all how much I appreciate your comments and feedback!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Matt makes a long-distance appearance and the press starts to get involved.

Andrew heard someone enter but didn’t dare take his arm away from his eyes.  “Andrew?”  It was Neil.  “Do you need some pain medication?”  
  
“Don’t want it,” he said.  “It makes me fuzzy.”   
  
“Maybe they can give you something else.”    
  
There was movement, and Andrew started to look but another pain lanced through his head.  He couldn’t muffle his groan.  “Drew, what’s wrong.”  
  
“My head.  Fuck.”  Not exactly the most erudite statement he’d ever made, but it was hard to get words from his brain to his mouth.  It wasn’t just the pain; he was getting memories, nothing really useful but a dizzying array of images that he couldn’t piece together.  Flashes of sound and images like passing through a room with the TV turned to a program you’d never seen before.   
  
Someone else came in.  “He needs pain medication, but he doesn’t want whatever you’ve been giving him,” Neil said.  “Do you have anything that won’t make him loopy?”  
  
“Let me get the doctor.”  
  
Several minutes later another set of footsteps sounded.  “Mr. Minyard, we’ve turned the lights down, can you move your arm?”  Keeping his eyes shut, he lowered his arm carefully.  “Thank you.  Can you try to open your eyes?”  
  
He cracked them open; his head throbbed dully in response but he could handle that.  Blinking, he registered the young doctor and one of the nurses standing over him.  Neil was hovering behind them.  “I would like to do the same tests I did this morning, is that all right?”  
  
“Yes.”    
  
She went through the same questions, and had him do the exercises.  Everything was fine until she checked his pupils; when the light hit his eyes he started to retch but managed to keep from vomiting.  
  
“I would like to give you some pain medication.  I can try a different one than you’ve been getting, it’s not as strong but it may be enough and it’s less likely to make you feel drugged, or we can give you what you’ve been taking.”  
  
“The new one.”  
  
She gave directions to the nurse, who messed around with his IV.  While they waited for it to take effect, she asked him, “What did you do this morning after I left?”  
  
“Talked to my cousin.  Ate breakfast.  Scrolled around on the phone.”   The dizziness began to ease, but he wasn’t sure how much of that was because when he was talking he wasn’t actively remembering.  “I’ve been getting flashes of things.  Memories.”  
  
“That’s good, but it can definitely make headaches worse.  I think you had the trifecta of not getting the medication this morning, the memories, and probably most of all the screen time.  There’s a reason we don’t have televisions in here.”  
  
That made sense.  She kept talking but Andrew wasn’t tracking.  Neil was answering her, and Andrew let himself drift.   
  
As the pain finally started to recede, exhaustion took over.  “Neil?” Andrew asked.  He wanted to ask him about the memory from that morning.  He wanted to know which of Neil’s countless scars he was responsible for and why Neil looked at him like that.  But he didn’t know how to ask, so when Neil asked him what he needed he just said, “Stay.”  
  
“Right here.”  Neil settled into the chair and the last thing Andrew saw as he drifted off was Neil’s elegant hand moving to rest a hairsbreadth from his own.  
  
 *****  
  
Once he was sure Andrew was sound asleep, Neil stole his phone from the edge of the bed and began going through his emailed assignments.  He already had enough credits to graduate but was required to take four classes to maintain his eligibility.  Luckily his professors were understanding after Wymack explained he had a “family emergency.”  All he needed to do was pass, anyway.   
  
When he finished his reading, he debated texting Nicky to ask about his conversation with Andrew, but it felt dishonest, somehow.  If Andrew wanted him to know he’d tell him.  He settled for texting Matt his condolences for his team’s loss the night before.  
  
 _Can’t win em all_   was Matt’s reply.  _How’re you doing?_  
  
Neil sat for a long time with his thumbs hovering over his screen.  _This sucks_  
  
 _Truth. He any better?_  
  
 _Getting some memories back_  
  
 _That’s good_  
  
 _Yeah. Can I call later?_  
  
 _Of course_  
  
He opened his browser and flipped through to ESPN, clicking on the exy tab at the top.  He read through the recap of Matt’s game that was the top headline, then scanned the headlines below it.  The third one down was “Breaker’s Goalie Out for the Season Following Head Injury.”  His thumb hit the link before he could think.  
  
The article was short, just a couple of paragraphs, but it pained Neil to see speculation about Andrew’s future written down in black and white.  To see him reduced to a commodity, to the tiny fraction of himself that was a goalkeeper, to see that the only part of Andrew’s future the world cared about was the part Andrew himself valued the least.  
  
He shut his phone off and slouched down in the chair.  As always his eyes ended up on Andrew.  The lines of pain had eased and he had curled up on his side facing the door.  If it weren’t for the fact that his head had been shaved and wrapped in a bandage he would’ve looked like he always did in sleep.  
  
The quiet knock on the door and the entrance of the physical therapist startled Andrew awake.  It only took a second for him to register where he was, for the mask to settle over his features.  Nancy apologized for waking him up and reviewed her plans for the session.  Andrew nodded, and when Neil asked him if he wanted him to stay, Andrew waved him away with a ghost of a glance.  
  
Neil went back to his stairwell and called Matt.  
  
“Hey, man, what’s up?”  
  
“Nothing really.  I’m just…”  His throat tightened, and he didn’t know what he wanted to say.  Matt waited patiently on the other end of the phone.  “He’s in so much pain, and I can’t help him, and it’s killing me, Matt.  It’s killing me.  And I have to go back to Palmetto soon and I don’t know what to do.”  
  
“I’m sorry.  I wish I could help.”  
  
“I know.”  Neil pressed the fingers of his free hand to his eyes.  There was a long pause.  
  
“How bad is it really?  Kevin said he didn’t recognize either one of you at first.”  
  
Neil hadn’t realized Kevin and Matt had talked.  He pictured the group chat they were probably all on and shoved down the surge of resentment.  “No, he didn’t.”  He gave a humorless laugh.  “I still think he only knows my name because people keep saying it.”  
  
“Shit.”  
  
“Yeah.  But then he doesn’t want me to leave, either.”  He shrugged, not that Matt could see it.  “He remembered something this morning but wouldn’t tell me what.  He called Nicky instead.”  
  
“Well, maybe it didn’t have anything to do with you.  I mean, he thought he was back to when Nicky had gotten attacked, right?”  
  
“Kevin tell you that too?”  
  
Matt ignored the edge in his tone.  “Yes, but it’s also all over the internet.”

“What?  How?”  
  
“It happened in front of sixty thousand people, Neil.  There’s videos of him screaming for Nicky up all over the place.”  
  
“Damnit.”  
  
“And, uh, there’s pictures and video of you, too.”  
  
Of course there was.  “From this morning?”  
  
“People were recording you at the airport and there’s photos from the plane.  What happened this morning?”  
  
“I ran into the paparazzi in front of the hospital.”  
  
“Oh no.”  Matt laughed.  “Anybody bleeding?”  
  
“Unfortunately no.”  He just wanted this day to end and it was barely lunchtime.  “Why does anybody give a shit about what I do?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m not touching that one.”  
  
Neil didn’t know what that meant, but there were more important considerations.  “Is this going to be a problem for Andrew?”  
  
“I think that depends on Andrew.”  
  
“Ugh.”  They talked for another minute before Matt had to go.  Neil rested his head in his arms for a long moment trying to figure out how it always worked that no matter what, somehow he just kept making things worse.    
  
*****  
  
Andrew was pretty certain the day was never going to end.  Or perhaps it had ended and he just didn’t know.  Perhaps it was already the next day, or the next week.  Perhaps he had died and this was some sort of weird purgatory, with dim lights and bland food and a slightly uncomfortable bed and a pretty boy he couldn’t quite bring himself to touch.    
  
Sometime during the day he had woken up and found the names and faces of his former team all neatly aligned in his brain, yet he remembered almost nothing else about them.  Just bits and pieces: Renee feinting left and sweeping his feet out from under him; Matt shoving his way between Kevin and Neil; Dan punching some guy in a black suit in the crotch with her shoes; Seth screwing Allison against the wall in the stairwell; Neil punching Jack off his feet on the court and Kevin telling him to get his lazy ass off the floor.  That last one was his favorite.  
  
He could feel Neil’s eyes on him and turned to meet them.  Neil smiled his stupid soft smile and Andrew wanted to reach over and push his face away.  If he hadn’t had the perfectly valid concern that he’d lose his balance and face plant on the floor he would have.  As it was, he just held that warm blue stare until Neil’s phone vibrated against the table and made them both jump.  
  
Neil snagged it, rolling his eyes as he read the text.  He tapped the screen and yelped like it had bitten him.  Clapping a hand over his mouth, his eyes widened as he read.  Andrew pushed himself up into a more vertical position to watch him.     
  
“What.”  
  
“It’s nothing,” Neil responded automatically, though his neck and ears were as red as his hair.  
  
“Are you going to read it to me or do I need to take your phone and read it for myself?”  
  
Neil tucked the phone behind his back.  “You can’t.  You’ll get a headache.”  
  
Andrew shrugged.  “Your choice.  Read it aloud or be responsible for giving me a headache.”  
  
Neil glared at him.  Andrew looked back at him with his best impassive face.  “You keep pretending like you don’t remember me but I’m starting to think you’re full of shit.”  He sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair; Andrew wondered if he knew how obvious all his tells were.  
  
Neil grumbled and turned away, then back to face him.  “The problem is, I’m an idiot.”  
  
“You shock me,” Andrew deadpanned.  
  
“I didn’t want you to have to deal with this shit now.”  He flopped back in his chair.  “I’m not sure how much you remember.”  
  
“Names and faces, little snippets here and there.  I’ve been able to infer a bit more.”  Neil looked at him with a question on his face.  “I’m concussed, I’m not stupid.”  
  
“Yeah, well.  When you got hurt, I just got on a plane and came up, right?  I didn’t even think about it.”  He stopped, staring into space, flipping his phone through his fingers for a minute before he glanced over at Andrew.  “Apparently some people in the airport thought that was noteworthy and posted some pictures of me online.”  
  
“And what, someone sent it to you?”  
  
“Not exactly.  Uh, people drew some conclusions from that.  And I guess I made it worse this morning with the fucking paparazzi.  Allison sent me a link.”  
  
Andrew thought he knew where this was going.  “Just read it.”  
  
Neil sighed and looked at his phone.  “‘NCAA exy star…’  No.  No, I can’t read this bullshit out loud.”  Andrew held out his hand for the phone.  “Fine, fine.  ‘NCAA exy star and certified hottie,’ what does that even mean?  Anyway.  ‘Neil Josten may be off the market.’  I was never on the market, you assholes.  ‘The exy world has been buzzing since a visibly agitated Josten was caught on camera flying to Boston after former PSU teammate and current Boston Breakers goalie Andrew Minyard was injured Sunday night.  Rumors of a secret relationship between the two Foxes appear to have been confirmed when Josten was spotted early this morning entering Mass General, the hospital where Minyard is currently being treated for a head injury.’  They didn’t ‘spot’ me, those fuckers practically attacked me.  ‘Minyard’s agent declined comment, and neither PSU coach David Wymack nor Breaker’s head coach Joe Murphy could be reached.’”  He set the phone down.  “I’m sorry.”    
  
Andrew drummed his fingers on his knees for a moment.  Learning that he was out from Nicky earlier had been a bit of a shock.  It hadn’t even occurred to him to wonder how far that extended.  He wondered briefly if Cass knew, what she thought, and shoved that question away.    It didn’t matter.  He had made his choice, many years ago now.  
  
“We can deny it, if you want,” Neil offered.  
  
Andrew looked at him, noting the tightness in his face. “What did you mean, you were never on the market?”  
  
Neil blinked at him, resting his hand on the back of his neck.  “Right.  Back when I first came to Palmetto, Nicky kept trying to get me to admit that I was gay.  But I’m not, not exactly.”  He shrugged.  “I’m not…anything, except that I want to be with you.  I just don’t see other people like that, you know?”    
  
Andrew searched his fractured memory for any fragment of this understanding but came up empty.  “Have you explained this to me before?”  
  
“No.”  Neil looked surprised, but Andrew couldn’t tell if it was because of the question or the answer.  “Not exactly.  I mean, I told you that I still don’t swing but I wasn’t so…”  He searched for the word and gave up with a shrug.  
  
“Why.”  
  
“Why you?  I don’t know, it just is.”    
  
Abruptly Andrew’s head started to hurt again.  This knowing and not knowing was driving him crazy.  Obviously he knew Neil.  But this version of him didn’t, not really.  He felt like he had a couple dozen pieces of the giant puzzle that was this man but none of them connected, and yet he was supposed to already know the final picture.  Already supposed to…like it.  He thought of Neil standing fierce between Andrew and the doctor, of the anchor of his steady hand when panic was pulling Andrew away.  Of him staying here night and day, having dropped everything to get on a plane to come here.  Of the softness of his smile and the fondness in his eyes.  Of the grief and rage that had swamped Andrew in that terrible memory.  It was too much.  
  
“I can’t do this.”  It was out before he knew what he was saying.  He couldn’t look at Neil so he closed his eyes and counted his breathing.  In for four, out for four.  
  
“Okay,” Neil said softly from next to him.  In for four, out for four, again and again, as he waited for sleep to drag him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I'll reply to all your wonderful comments when I have time, I can't tell you how much I love them! Hope you continue to enjoy this peculiar mix of angst and fluff.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, nobody should ever put a recording device anywhere near Neil's mouth.

It took a long time for Andrew’s breathing to smooth out into that of real sleep.  Neil wasn’t sure what had upset him the most, the forced outing or the fact of Neil’s existence.  Probably a bit of both.  He never should’ve read that stupid article.  What kind of website was exygossip.com anyway?  
  
Allison sent him several more links until he finally replied.  _Stop it with this shit we don’t need this right now_  
  
_Sorry babycakes but you guys are gonna have to figure out a response_  
  
_Not now it’s too soon_  
  
_It’s not going to get any better you should know this by now_  
  
He did know, but the only thing that kept him from flinging his phone across the room was that he didn’t want to wake up Andrew.  
  
_I can’t do this_.  There were so many reasons for Andrew to feel overwhelmed right now, so many things he could have meant.  Neil didn’t need to feel like the ground was dropping out from under his feet.  He didn’t need to be fighting so hard to swallow; his heart didn’t need to be racing; his lungs could expand.  He thought of Dr. Kupra’s three things and went through it.  It helped, but he preferred the weight of Andrew’s hand on the back of his neck.  
  
For the thousandth time, he thought of that ball ricocheting off the wall, of the way a simple fit of spite could rob Andrew of seven years.  He wanted to be grateful that it wasn’t worse, but he couldn’t find it, not then.  Not when it might have taken the most important thing from him.  
  
The growling of his stomach snapped him out of his angry haze.  He tried to think of what he had eaten that day, but all he came up with was two protein bars.  Shit.  He couldn’t afford to lose any weight, Wymack would have his head and Abby would give him her patented Sad Eyes and he couldn’t handle Sad Eyed Abby.    
  
The cafeteria was almost empty, just a few exhausted nurses and doctors drooping over their trays.  Neil picked a bunch of food at random, studiously avoiding the hamburgers.  He was halfway through his tray when his phone buzzed and he prayed it wasn’t Allison.  
  
It was Aaron.  _Leaving tomorrow after class be up by 8_  
  
_Careful about public trans there’s press all over the place_  
  
_No shit I saw the pics you dumbass_   Of course he did.  _Won’t be a problem Katelyn’s driving_  
  
_He doesn’t remember her_  
  
_Do you want me to come up or not?_  
  
Neil bent his plastic fork and counted to ten in Russian before he responded.  _Yes I’m just warning you I don’t know how he’ll react_  
  
_He’s in a hospital bed there’s not a lot he can do_  
  
Okay, maybe he didn’t want Aaron to come _.  See you tomorrow_  
  
_K_  
  
Andrew was still asleep when Neil got back to the room.  He could go back to the apartment, but he didn’t want a repeat of that morning so he wadded up his coat and lay down on the window ledge. It was just wide enough for him, and he’d slept in less comfortable places.  But every time he tried to sleep he kept seeing the flicker of true fear in Andrew’s eyes, kept hearing the strain in his voice.  _I can’t do this_.    
  
When he finally gave up on sleep he pulled out his phone and clicked through the links Allison had sent.  All variations on the same theme, all speculation on their relationship.  One had photos of him from the airport; another from that morning.  At least his coat covered up the fact that he had accidentally grabbed Andrew’s PSU hoodie instead of his own on his way out of the apartment.    
  
He made the mistake of scrolling all the way down on one of the articles.  The comments were pretty evenly split between excited shows of support to violent condemnation.  Several people had said that Andrew’s injury was a punishment from God.  There were many disparaging comments about Neil’s scars as well, ugly rants about how disgusting they were, how he deserved them.  How his father should’ve killed him and been done with it.  His hands were shaking by the time he closed the browser.  
  
Andrew was barely visible across the room, so Neil crept over to his usual chair.  The bruising around his eyes was fading to that odd greenish tinge, which looked even stranger in the dim glow from the monitors.  But he was here.  He was here and he would recover, and that was the only thing that mattered.    
  
Hazel eyes blinked open and took him in.  “Staring,” Andrew murmured before falling back asleep.  Neil smiled, his earlier thoughts miraculously banished.  Curling up into a tight ball, he finally let himself drift.  
  
*****  
  
The dark-haired boy bolted through the locker room, the coaches on his heels.  Andrew could’ve predicted this.  Did predict this, which is why he had grabbed the boy’s racquet from the rack.  Everything about this boy screamed liar, screamed runaway, though neither Kevin nor Wymack wanted to hear it.  But come on, what legit kid appeared out of nowhere, was some sort of exy prodigy, yet had parents who were literally unreachable?  So as the boy approached in his unseeing terror, Andrew swung the racquet, not hard but hard enough, catching him in the midsection.  The boy dropped gasping to the ground, and Andrew stared down at him with malevolent glee.    
  
Then he was awake and looking at those same features but altered.  The coloring was different, the skin was marred, and the restlessness was gone.  Yet he knew that had been a memory, not a dream.  He shook his head to clear it, and the motion drew Neil’s attention.  
  
“Good morning,” Neil said softly, almost hesitantly.  “How are you feeling?”  
  
Andrew could feel Neil’s ruined skin under fingers that were resting on blankets, the impact of the racquet against his body in shoulders that pressed into pillows.  “Show me your scars.”  Neil blinked and glanced over at the door.  “You don’t have to.”  
  
“No, it’s not…I don’t mind you seeing, you’ve seen them a thousand times.  It’s just, it’s getting close to when they all start coming in and medical types don’t take well to them.”  He stretched as he got out of the chair and Andrew tried not to look at the lean lines of his body.  Though given what he had figured out he supposed he had more justification to look than most.  
  
Neil turned his back to the door and tugged his shirt up as much as he could without taking it off.  And there they were, the same marks his hands could not forget, the thick ropes across his abdomen, the triangular burn on his shoulder - an iron, Andrew recalled.  Small neat lines layered over the large patch of oddly smooth skin on his chest.  
  
“Which ones are from me?”  
  
“What?”  Neil let his shirt drop and looked down at him in confusion.  "None of them, Drew.”  
  
But that didn’t feel right.  He had no conscious memory of setting blade to Neil’s flesh, but he remembered looking at fresh sutures in that pale skin with anger flooding him, anger at Neil, anger at himself.    
  
“You don’t need to lie to me.”  
  
“I’m not.  Almost all of those are from my father’s people.”  He shoved his sleeves up and rolled his arms, letting Andrew get a good look at the circular marks and lines that covered his hands and forearms.    
  
“I hit you with a racquet.”  
  
Neil nodded slowly, with a small twitch at the corner of his mouth.  “Yeah, you did.  That was how we met.  It was when you were still on your drugs.”  
  
Fuck.  That was that feeling.  That dizzy, laughing, vicious feeling.   He had always felt like everything was a video game, too bright, too fast, too loud; nothing had consequences; nothing was real; even game over had appeal.  He couldn’t remember why he had been on them, just that he had lived for the few lucid hours each week when he was off.  “Who the fuck thought that was a good idea,” Andrew grumbled.  
  
“Not me,” said Neil.  “But then I always preferred you sober.  At least if you kill me sober I’ll know I deserve it.”  
  
Andrew gave him a flat look.  “You said I had never hurt you.”  
  
“No, I said none of my scars were from you.”  
  
“Oh, you are a master of technicalities, aren’t you.”  Andrew didn’t know why this bothered him so much.  
  
“Only when they matter.”  There was noise in the hallway and Neil glanced at the door again.  “You hit me with the racquet when I was running away from Wymack,” he said quietly.  “And you drugged me once because you knew I was lying about who I was and you were worried I was there for Kevin.  That’s it.  That’s the list.  Oh, and sometimes if I wake you up by mistake you’ll lash out, but that’s different, it’s not directed at me.”  
  
The door opened and Neil stepped back, and Andrew was almost grateful for the nurse’s cheery interruption.  After checking Andrew’s vitals, she handed Neil a slip of paper.  “Dr. Kupra told me to give you that.”  
  
“Thank you.  It’s a gym pass,” Neil said to Andrew, answering his unspoken question.  “Actually if you’re all right for now I’ll go work out.  But I can do it later if you’d rather I stay.”  
  
Andrew waved him off.  He was pretty sure he could handle this routine better than hyperanalyzing Neil’s unfathomable trust.  Neil paused in the doorway.  “I forgot to tell you, Aaron’s coming up tonight with his girlfriend.”  Andrew raised an eyebrow at him and he grinned.  “Yes, you dislike her.  And no, you can’t kill her.”  Neil laughed at the nurse’s startled expression before disappearing into the hall.    
  
The nurse turned to him, clearly hoping she was missing the joke.  He shrugged.  “Man’s got a weird sense of humor, what can I say.”  She visibly relaxed and returned to her job.  Andrew couldn’t keep his thoughts from drifting back to Neil, wondering how the terrified runaway bolting through that locker room had turned into the stubborn man who was haunting him now.  Then speculating on what it would be like to relearn the feel of those scars…  He shoved that uselessness down as Dr. Martin entered and forced his attention to her litany of questions and exercises.  After all, this version of him had no right to Neil, not when he couldn’t recall what he’d done to earn Neil’s trust but only what should’ve broken it.  
  
*****  
  
The gym in the hospital basement was small and empty with flickering fluorescent lighting and a vaguely musty smell.  It looked like the set for a horror movie.  Only one person was there, using the sole elliptical.  She ignored Neil as he went to the pile of towels and snagged one then got on one of the treadmills.  
  
After eight miles, he forced himself to stop to stretch and drink some water.  Without a spotter he didn’t dare do free weights, so settled on one of the weight machines.  There were two televisions playing on mute and a couple of other people came in.  The original woman left.  None of it was enough to distract him from wondering why Andrew thought he’d hurt him.  
  
At least today it seemed that Andrew was interested.  It was almost like last night hadn’t happened at all, but Neil didn’t think he’d forgotten.  
  
When he was done with his workout he dried off and headed to the cafeteria.  The line was insanely long and didn’t seem to be moving.  At all.  After several minutes he remembered there was a coffee shop in the lobby and gave up on the line.    
  
He passed a gift shop on his way and the t-shirts caught his eye.  He really needed to shower but didn’t want to leave the hospital or put his dirty clothes back on.  They had a couple of styles of long sleeved shirts and he picked one with a “Boston Strong” logo, mostly because he thought the bright blue and yellow would annoy Andrew more than the plain black “MGH” ones.  On his way to the cashier, he snagged a king-sized Reese’s.  He wasn’t sure if Andrew was allowed that much sugar but knew he wouldn’t care about any dietary restrictions.  
  
The coffee shop was busy too but at least the line was moving.  He had just finished paying when he heard a voice call, “Neil!”  His name was common enough that when he didn’t recognize the voice he didn’t acknowledge it, but he couldn’t ignore the “Neil Josten!” that was shouted next.    
  
A large, red faced man snapped a picture of him as soon as he raised his head.  Gritting his teeth, he made to leave but the man blocked the exit and shoved a recorder in his face.  “Neil, do you care to comment on your relationship with Andrew Minyard?”  Neil stared at him in silence, not trying to keep the fury off his face.  The man was undeterred.  “What is it like being a gay athlete?”  
  
“Does hospital security know you’re in here?” Neil finally asked when it was clear the man wasn’t going to budge.  The shop had gone quiet and when he looked over his shoulder to try to get the cashier’s attention for assistance he saw several people had their phones trained on him.  The cashier yelled something at one of the other workers and Neil turned back to the man.  
  
“Come on, Neil, the public needs to know.”  
  
Neil laughed and felt his cruelest smile curve his lips.  “Are you ashamed of the path your career has taken?  I bet when you decided to become a journalist you thought you’d be covering something important, like war or global climate change or mass shootings.  But here you are, stuck chasing down obscure college athletes in hospitals to ask about their sex lives.  How sad.    
  
“I wasn’t aware that coming to visit an injured teammate was some sort of grand declaration.  The truth is, the public doesn’t need to know about my sex life.  They don’t need to know about anybody’s.  They want to know it, because it’s more fun than all of the shit that’s really going on in the world, but just because we get distracted from the sixth circle of hell we are currently in doesn’t make that hell go away.”    
  
Hospital security appeared, one of them grabbing the photographer’s arm and dragging him back.  “But Neil,” the man yelled as he struggled against the hold, “don’t you think you can be an example for gay kids?”  
  
Neil huffed a laugh.  “I am the last person in the world who should be an example for anyone, regardless of where my sexuality falls on the spectrum.  Go fuck up somebody else’s life.”  He shoved past the man to the sound of applause from the coffee shop.  
  
He was still fuming when the elevator doors dinged open on the sixth floor.  Neil almost dropped his bags when he was greeted with the sight of Andrew walking down the hallway with Nancy and a walker that he wasn’t really using.  Andrew stopped when he caught sight of Neil.  His eyes narrowed.  “What happened.”  
  
“What?” Neil asked innocently.  
  
“I barely remember you and I can see you’re agitated about something.”  
  
Neil sighed.  “I’m sure there will a video up on the internet soon.  I’ll play it for you.”  
  
Andrew looked at him with the subtle amusement in his eyes that nobody else ever picked up on.  “You fucking idiot.”  
  
He couldn’t argue with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how much all your support means! Hope this chapter lightened the mood a little. Also I won't lie, if I had more time I would literally create an exygossip.com site because I think that would be hilarious (hint hint to someone who's more internet savvy than I am).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...Andrew remembers some bad shit. Not graphic, but be warned.
> 
> And, there's a random Harry Potter spoiler?

Neil was a trouble magnet.  Andrew didn’t remember too many specifics, but he knew it with a bone deep certainty.  So he wasn’t all that surprised when Neil admitted he’d lit into some paparazzo and it had all been caught on video by a dozen different coffee shop patrons.  He supposed he should at least be pleased the idiot hadn’t been arrested.  
  
Said idiot was sitting in the chair next to him, doing equations on his phone and completely oblivious to how distracting he was with his wet hair falling in his face.  Andrew really needed something else to occupy his mind but options were limited when he couldn’t handle more than a couple of minutes of looking at a screen.  He doubted reading a book would be any easier on his head.  At least he no longer had that stupid catheter in, now that he had proven he could walk to the bathroom on his own.  Small favors.  
  
A flicker of a memory came, not a full one, just a flash of sitting on the couch in Columbia watching a movie with his feet in Neil’s lap.  He’d had several of those already that morning, brief snapshots of the surprisingly ordinary life he had built.  The information didn’t seem to be downloading in a giant dump anymore, but instead coming in short bursts that were easier to manage.  Most of the memories didn’t involve Neil.  He now knew what his apartment looked like, and his landlord; he remembered first setting down his stuff in front of his locker in the Boston stadium, and driving around with Nicky and Aaron, and Kevin grabbing his face mask on the court, and making out with Roland in the back room at Eden’s Twilight.  But only the few with Neil had that odd settled feeling.  It was annoying, really; he didn’t recognize that version of himself and wasn’t totally sure he wanted to.  
  
Neil’s phone vibrated and he looked up at Andrew with a grin.  “Oh, Allison’s yelling at me.  Video must be up.  Yup.  Wanna see?”  
  
Andrew shifted so there was room for Neil to sit on the bed.  Neil hesitated only for a second before settling carefully on the edge.  He held up the phone and tapped the screen.  Under a Twitter headline of “#10NeilJosten goes off on reporter” was the brief video.    
  
It wasn’t nearly as bad as Andrew had expected.  He was vaguely disappointed in the lack of violence, but otherwise he had to admit he was…impressed.  Really, that level of redirection required some fast thinking, especially on the fly.  Neil dropped the phone on the bed and looked at him anxiously.  “I hope that was okay, we hadn’t really decided on whether or not we were going to come out, but I don’t want to deny this either.”  
  
There is no this, Andrew wanted to say, and he didn’t know why that response came so automatically when there very clearly was a this.  Instead he looked up at Neil and said, “Seventh.”  The blankness of Neil’s expression was comical, so he went on.  “You meant the seventh circle of hell.  The sixth is heresy, the seventh is violence.  Though I’d argue that society is really trapped in the fourth.  Greed.”    
  
Neil’s jaw literally dropped, and Andrew tapped him under the chin, trying to ignore the odd feeling in his gut at the contact.  “What the hell, Drew?” Neil started to laugh.  “When did you read…whatever that’s from?”  
  
“You ignorant child, you referenced Dante’s Inferno without knowing what it is?”    
  
“When did you read Dante’s Inferno, then?”  
  
Andrew shrugged.  “Juvie.”  
  
“You read Dante’s Inferno in juvie.  That seems like an odd choice, I’ve got to be honest.”    
  
“Not a lot of book selection, and there’s only so many times you can read the fourth book of Harry Potter.  I mean, no matter what, Cedric still dies.”  Neil looked thrown and Andrew wondered if he should’ve given him a spoiler alert.  Too late.  “And I refused to read all the religious shit they kept shoving at me.  Dante’s Inferno was a compromise.”  
  
“I didn’t realize you knew the meaning of that word.”  Neil’s phone buzzed again and he looked at it.  “I know, I know,” he grumbled.  
  
“What.”  
  
“Allison.  ‘ _When I said you’d have to say something this was not what I had in mind babycakes_.’”  Yeah, well, tough shit.”  The phone buzzed again.  “‘ _You do know the non-denial will be taken as confirmation_.’  Yes, thank you oh wise one.”  He tapped something into his phone then looked up at Andrew. “She has a point though.”       
  
Andrew found he didn’t really care.  People already knew he was gay, there were worse things than being linked to a smart-mouthed pretty boy.  “Whatever.  Let them think what they want.  I just don’t want to make some official statement about it.”  
  
Neil flashed him his sweet, soft smile and Andrew shoved his face away.  The smile broadened and Neil settled back against the raised head of the bed and pulled up his math problems again.  It struck Andrew that this was his life now.  Sitting here inches away from this man who was doing homework like it was no big deal.  It felt strange and impossible and normal all at the same time and all Andrew could think was how.  
  
*****  
  
Neil’s phone would not shut up.  He debated letting it run out of battery but needed to be available for Aaron so when it blinked a warning at him he resigned himself and plugged it in.  Working on his differential geometry had long become an impossibility thanks to the constant interruptions.  He could think of far more pleasant ways to spend the time but Andrew still seemed a little shocked if they sat close to each other so that was a no go.  
  
The phone buzzed yet again and kept buzzing.  “Wymack,” he said to Andrew.  “Do you want me to go out in the hall?”  Andrew shook his head and Neil picked up.  “Hey, Coach.”  
  
“Why did I ever make the mistake of thinking if you were holed up in a hospital I didn’t need to worry about the press?”  
  
“Excessive optimism?”  
  
“They’re up my ass, I’m going to have to say something at the press conference this afternoon.  You guys have a plan?”  
  
“Not really,” Neil said, watching Andrew watching him.  “I think we’re trying to avoid formal statements though.”  
  
“Okay.”  There was silence on the line.  
  
“How’s my team, Coach?”  
  
“They’re doing all right, we need you back soon though.  Robin and Bryan can’t manage these lunatics all by themselves.  Binghamton’s a week from today.”  
  
“I know.  I’ll be there.”  
  
“How’s it going up there?”  
  
“Getting better.  He’s pissed I don’t know my Dante properly.”  Andrew rolled his eyes.  
  
Wymack huffed in his version of a laugh.  “That sounds about right.  Look, if he needs some ongoing help once he’s released, we can make something work down here.  Abby’s having kittens about him and I suspect Betsy’s not much better.”  
  
Neil had to blink hard for a moment before he could speak.  “That’s…that’s good to know, Coach.  Thanks.  I’ll let you know what the doctor says.”  
  
“What is it?” Andrew asked as soon as Neil hung up.    
  
“He, uh, he said that if you want, while you finish recovering you can come back to PSU with me.”  
  
Andrew studied him for an endless minute before turning away.  He reached for the pack of Reese’s and tilted one out into his hand.  Neil gave up on getting a reply and had clicked his phone back on to start answering his dozens of text messages when Andrew spoke up.  “How did you get the rest of them?”    
  
Neil scanned the conversation they’d been having and came up blank.  “Of what?”  
  
“Your scars.  You said this morning that most of them were from your father’s people.  Nicky told me about him, and I remember parts of Baltimore, but how’d you get the rest?”  
  
“Oh.”  His hand went involuntarily to his ribcage.  “Riko.  Riko gave me the rest of them.”  
  
He watched as that bomb hit, the slow motion ripple effect it had as memories resurfaced and deductions were made.  Watched as Andrew’s pupils dilated and his hands started to tremble before he shoved them between his clamped knees.  Watched Andrew’s head drop and his jaw clench and the cords of tendons in his neck leap out.  Heard his rasping breaths ratchet up and the grate of his teeth against each other.  He didn’t know how far back Andrew’s mind went, didn’t know what to do.  
  
“Andrew.”  The only response was a hitch in the breathing.  “Andrew, look at me.  Look at me.”  Those hazel eyes were nearly black when they darted to him and away again.  “It’s over.  He’s dead.”  Neil didn’t even know whether he meant Riko or Drake, it applied to both.  “It’s over, and you’re clean, and you came back from this.  You came back.”  
  
He debated pressing the call button for the nurse, not sure if more people would make the issue better or worse.  In the end he settled for not, the potential overreaction on the parts of the staff outweighing any benefit of possible distraction.  “I’m here, Drew.  What are you remembering?”  Andrew shook his head violently and curled up tighter.  “I’m here,” Neil repeated helplessly, cursing himself internally in every language he knew.  “I’m here.”    
  
*****  
  
He thought at first it was a flashback to when he was thirteen, but the room wasn’t right and his head hurt too much and he was laughing.  He had never laughed before.  
  
He thought at first it was a nightmare, but he could still see the hospital around him.  
  
He thought at first that he could keep this tucked deep inside, still keep it safe as he had always done behind the armor he had always worn.  
  
But Neil knew.  Unscarred, dark-haired, dark-eyed Neil was there in the memory, Neil and Aaron both.  They were there and they were spattered with blood and it was real, oh, god, it was real.  
  
*****  
  
Andrew was silent for the rest of the day.  He had eventually slipped into a calm that would’ve seemed like a coma if he hadn’t continued to react to people in the room.  He’d even gotten up and walked the halls with Nancy, ignoring her chatter about her rescue cats with blank-eyed indifference.  Neil explained to the doctors that he’d recovered a bad memory and they hadn’t pushed him to talk, just made him go through his usual exercises.  Out in the hallway afterwards Dr. Martin had suggested a therapist; she’d seemed a little surprised when Neil informed her Andrew had two.  
  
If Neil had thought watching Andrew in physical pain was hard, this was a thousand times worse.  At least there was medication that could be given for a headache.  He couldn’t even call Matt to talk about it, it felt too much like an invasion of Andrew’s privacy.    
  
He scrolled through his texts again; it felt like they were from a lifetime ago.  
  
_Literally crying tears of joy rn_ from Nicky.  
  
_Never been more proud of you than in this moment_ from Dan.  
  
_WTF spectrum you gay but your right your a shitty example_ from Jack.  Asshole.  He couldn’t even use the right you’re.  
  
Clapping hands emoji from Matt, followed by _hows Andrew taking it?_  
  
A rainbow of heart emojis from Renee.    
  
_When r u coming back i hate these people_ from Robin.  
  
And a series of articles from Allison that he couldn’t bring himself to click through.  
  
He typed out neutral replies to everyone but Jack.  Finally he got the text from Aaron that they were in the lobby.  He told Andrew, who didn’t react, and went down to get them.  Katelyn hugged him gently and asked how he was doing in a serious tone.  
  
“I’m fine,” Neil said automatically, and Aaron rolled his eyes.    
  
“That’s going on your tombstone,” he said.  Neil wanted to argue but couldn’t, so he led them to the elevators, listening to Katelyn chatter about the drive up and the mass of photographers in front of the building.    
  
“So, um, he’s had a rough evening,” Neil said once the elevator emptied out on the third floor.  
  
“Is that because of your idiot moment this morning?”  Aaron asked.  
  
“No, actually he was okay with that.”  Aaron shook his head in disgust and the elevator dinged.  Neil pulled them aside into the empty waiting area.  “He remembered something.  I think it was Drake but I’m not sure, he wouldn’t talk to me.”  
  
“Then why do you think it was Drake?”  
  
Neil shrugged.  “I just do.”  
  
Aaron and Katelyn had a silent conversation and Katelyn turned to Neil.  “We didn’t stop to eat anywhere, is there a cafeteria or something?”  Neil nodded and Katelyn put her hand on his arm.  “How about Aaron goes and sees Andrew while you and I grab some food.”  Neil gave Aaron a searching look that was met with calm determination.  With a hesitant nod he gave Andrew’s room number and followed Katelyn back to the elevator.  As the elevator doors slid shut he saw Aaron stalled in front of Andrew’s room, head bowed, before he reached for the handle and entered.  
  
*****  
  
It was strange, how you could scream and scream and nobody could hear you.  
  
Andrew could have sworn he was screaming.  He could hear it echoing in his ears, his throat was raw and his chest ached from the effort of it.  But nobody around him seemed to hear it.  Neil looked at him with sad understanding, the nurses were gentle, the doctor didn’t seem to expect him to answer her, but they all talked in normal voices to and about him.  He could hear them; it didn’t make sense that they couldn’t hear him.  
  
Except people never had.  
  
Neil left and the room was empty and his scream was still rebounding around the room.  Then there came a faint knock and Aaron entered.  Aaron, who looked exactly like him.  Aaron, who he had cared about before he ever met him.  Aaron, who had twisted that love like he’d twisted his hatred for his mother, until he couldn’t tell the difference between the two.  
  
He stopped screaming.  Perhaps he never had been.  He could never tell.  
  
“Hey, man,” Aaron said, dropping into Neil’s chair.  “Hear it’s been a rough week.”  Andrew didn’t know how to respond to that perfect banality.  “Your asshole boyfriend and Katelyn are getting food, they should be up in a bit.”  Andrew blinked and saw Aaron spattered with blood, then blinked again and he was fine.  
  
“You killed him,” he said, and he could hear the difference between the words and the screaming.  How much more solid the words sounded.  Like they could be touched, cupped in a hand.  
  
Aaron shifted in the chair but didn’t look away.  Andrew heard him swallow.  “Yes, I did.”  
  
Andrew wondered how Aaron could put up with years of Tilda’s abuse but then kill Drake for hurting Andrew.  He didn’t think he had spoken out loud but perhaps Aaron read the question in his face.  “Do you remember doing counseling together?  No?  It was your asshole boyfriend’s fault, of course.  Anyway, I think it was junior year, right before the trial.  You told me that the reason why you had sent me that letter, the one telling me to fuck off when I asked to meet you, was because of Drake.”    
Andrew did remember, then.  A hyper-organized office and hot chocolate and a calm reasoned voice and anger and grief and so much unfamiliar longing.  “You said that I’m not the only one who’s allowed to care.”  
  
Aaron nodded.  “Maybe nobody did for a long time.  But you have me and Nicky and Coach and Dobson and Renee and your asshole boyfriend who care.  Maybe even Kevin too, when he can get the exy racquet out of his ass.  Now, you might not remember us -”  
  
“I didn’t forget you.”  
  
Aaron nodded and went quiet.  Andrew closed his eyes, leaning back against the pillows.  His head was pounding and he felt a nauseating fullness in his stomach.    
  
“Do you need something?” Aaron asked.  “Pain meds or something?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
There was a pause and then footsteps and he recognized the night nurse’s voice.  “What do you want, Mr. Minyard, the new stuff or the old stuff?”  
  
“New.”  It didn’t fuck with his head so much.  
  
There was the sound of a drawer opening and closing, then, “Is it all right if I touch your arm?”  
  
He ground out a yes and there was a feather-light touch where his IV was.  Aaron and the nurse were talking in low voices, then the nurse said, “Let’s give that a few minutes and I’m going to turn the lights down.  You’ve done really well having them up this high all day.”  
  
The room went quiet and he waited for the pressure to ease.  Once he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to vomit he blinked and looked at the chair.  Aaron was watching him with sharp eyes.    
  
“I’m tired.”  
  
“You can sleep.  I’ll stay until your asshole boyfriend gets back.”     
  
Exhaustion crashed over him in a wave.  He surfaced enough to ask, “Why do you call him that?”  
  
“Because ‘Neil’ takes too long to say.”  Andrew snorted despite himself and looked back at Aaron, who was smiling faintly.  “Go to sleep.  I’ll be back tomorrow.”    
  
Fatigue swept over him again, and this time he let the peaceful darkness drag him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaron may seem a little OOC but I'm counting on him having grown up a bit in four years, with counseling and being in a stable relationship.
> 
> Thank you all again for your wonderful comments, they mean the world to me!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betsy makes a long-distance appearance and Katelyn's a sweetheart

After Aaron and Katelyn left for the night, Neil found he couldn’t settle.  Andrew was out cold.  He pulled out his phone and stared at the black screen for a while; he felt a strong urge to see what the internet trolls were saying but knew it would only piss him off.    
  
Aaron had confirmed Neil’s suspicion.  Neil tried not to resent that Andrew would talk to Aaron and not to him; it wasn’t Aaron’s fault, or Andrew’s for that matter.  Or his.  
  
He wandered down the hall to the deserted waiting area. The nurse at the desk gave him a quick smile then returned to his computer.  Neil clicked on his phone and pulled up his contact list.  Betsy Dobson was the first of the Bs.  It was just after nine; he thought she would still be up.    
  
She picked up on the second ring.  “Betsy, it’s Neil.”  
  
“Neil!  This is an unexpected pleasure.”  
  
“I hope I didn’t wake you up.”  
  
“Not at all, I was just having a cup of tea and reading a rather terrible novel.”    
  
Neil picked at a threadbare seam on the corner of the couch he had flopped down on and tried to think of what to say.  He didn’t really know what he expected Betsy to do from South Carolina.  
  
“Neil?”  
  
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you.”  
  
“Don’t hang up, Neil.  I’m guessing you’re calling because of something with Andrew.”  
  
Neil pressed the fingers of his free hand into his eyes.  “He remembered Drake.”  
  
There was a short pause.  “I’m sure that was very difficult for both of you.”  
  
“What do you know about his…situation?”  
  
“Just what David shared with me and what was on the news.”  
  
“He doesn’t remember much of the past few years,” Neil gritted out.  “He doesn’t really remember me.”  
  
The pause was longer this time.  “What do the doctors say?”  
  
“They say he’s doing well.  They say this is ‘normal’ for this type of injury.”  He laughed without humor.  “I’m starting to understand why Andrew has grudges against certain words.”  
  
“But you said he’s recovering memories.”  
  
“Some, yeah.  Mostly the terrible ones, as far as I can tell.”  
  
“Or perhaps those are the ones he can’t help but show.”    
  
Neil digested that.  “I just don’t understand how this works.  How can he remember Baltimore, but not really remember who I am?  I mean, he knows my name, he remembers hitting me with that racquet, but I’m not sure he remembers me.  Do you know what I mean?”  
  
“I do.  Have you asked him?”  
  
“No.”    
  
“Why not?”    
  
He could hear that she knew his answer in her tone.  Instead he asked, “Can’t you help him with recovering his memory?”  
  
“Not really, no,” she said gently.  “I can help him process what he knows, and that may help in turn, but really it’s up to his brain.  On the plus side, we know what a formidable one he has.”  
  
“I’m still not sure what’s going to happen when he’s released, anyway.  If he’s going to come back down with me or not.”  
  
“Don’t forget that he has an excellent therapist there in Boston.  Depending on how long he’s hospitalized, and what the next step is, Dr. Isaac may be a better option.  Have you contacted him?”  
  
“No,” Neil said, feeling like an idiot for the thousandth time that week.  “I don’t know how to.”  
  
“I imagine his number is in Andrew’s phone.”  Right.  The phone still sitting in the stadium with all of his other stuff.  Neil wondered how he had forgotten about that.    
  
“How are you doing, Neil?  Not you-and-Andrew, but you.”  When he didn’t answer she added, “There’s a reason you called me rather than talking to his doctors.”  
  
He just wanted everything back to the way it was.  A week ago he had been wrapped up with Andrew in their bed savoring the last of his break.  Just a week ago.  “I’m fine.”  
  
She sighed.  “All right, is there anything else I can help you with?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“In that case, get some sleep.  Good night, Neil.”  
  
He thought he thanked her before hanging up.  He hoped he had.  Pulling his fingers away from the loose threads on the couch, he dragged himself back to the room.  
  
*****  
  
The click of a door registered through the haze of sleep and Andrew snapped awake.  The room was oddly lit.  He blinked.  It wasn’t his room.  He blinked again.  There was an empty chair next to his bed and a window in the door.  He dragged himself out of the nightmare - or was it a memory?  Not that there was much of a difference.  All his nightmares were really memories.    
  
A few more blinks and he was back in the present.  He could hear subtle movement in the room then Neil appeared in his line of vision, furtively preparing for sleep.  Neil lowered himself slowly into the chair, then froze when he saw Andrew’s eyes on him.  “Sorry,” he whispered.  “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”  
  
“How long was I out for?”  
  
“Just a couple hours.  You can go back to sleep, I’m done making noise.”  
  
But for once Andrew wasn’t sleepy.  Judging by the way Neil held his eyes once he was settled into the chair, neither was he.  “What.”  
  
Neil blinked at him in confusion.  “What?”  
  
“You’re staring.”  
  
“I’m always staring.”  
  
“Yeah but now you’re staring with a purpose.”  
  
Neil looked away, fiddling with his hands.  “I hate this,” he said finally.  Andrew waited.  “I hate that you only remember the bad stuff.”  
  
Andrew didn’t know how to respond to that.  Didn’t know how to tell him that he remembered other things - remembered bits and pieces of meals and drives and games and shared cigarettes on the roof, the weight of Neil’s mouth on his own and the feel of his skin, the sound of his hitches of breath.  Because none of that felt real.  None of that felt possible, despite the obvious evidence of it sitting curled up in a ball in the chair next to him.    
  
“Go to sleep, junkie,” he said, not totally sure where the nickname came from, and Neil’s eyes snapped back to his.  “It’s not all I remember.”    
  
The smile he received in reply was ridiculous, and he ignored it as he settled back in, tugging the blankets tighter around himself.  Just as he ignored Neil’s hand coming to rest on the edge of his bed, as it somehow always seemed to.  And if he woke up the next morning to find their finger tips slightly interlaced, he didn’t comment on it and neither did Neil.  
  
The atmosphere in the hospital was different that day.  It seemed like suddenly everything that had been in slow-motion was at full speed.  He got wheeled off for another MRI first thing, and this time the noise-canceling headphones were enough that he didn’t need to vomit afterwards.  The lights were brighter and he walked for longer and they even let him have a magazine.  Neil disappeared to work out, with a laughing promise to try not to assault any reporters.    
  
Aaron and his girlfriend appeared just as Neil returned bearing a chocolate-filled croissant that he handed to Andrew without ceremony.  The girlfriend greeted Neil with a hug and handed him a bag full of stuff, and Andrew understood why Neil had warned him he wasn’t allowed to kill her.  Especially when she pecked Neil on the cheek when he took the bag.  Andrew glanced at Aaron, who rewarded him with an eye roll.    
  
The girlfriend chattered about New York and the stresses of anatomy lab while Neil showered.  Andrew wanted to tune her out but there was little else to hold his attention.  Though watching Aaron… Most of what Andrew remembered of Aaron was from before.  This was interesting, to say the least.  
  
Then Neil came out of the bathroom and Andrew decided maybe he didn’t hate the girlfriend after all.   Not if she’d picked out those clothes.  Fuck.  He really didn’t know what was wrong with him.  Well, besides the whole skull-fracture-traumatic-brain-injury thing.  The doctors hadn’t mentioned this as a potential symptom.  Then again, given what memories his brain was dredging up, perhaps it was some pre-existing condition.  A manifestation of the bipolar, or something.  Because want was normal.  Want was biological.  He understood want, had since juvie.  But this was more like need.  And need was irrational.  Need was dangerous.  Need had led to the lines marring his forearms, to him breaking into houses and shops until he had finally been caught, to whatever had been left of his heart being destroyed.    
  
Aaron and the girlfriend were wedged into the chair together.  Neil stood near the foot of the bed, listening to the inane conversation as if it were important.  Andrew studied the long-healed scars on his face.  Abruptly, not caring about whatever nonsense he was interrupting, he asked, “How long ago did that happen?”  He gestured to his own face.    
  
The girlfriend made a remonstrative noise but Neil answered easily, “Almost four years ago.”  He gave Andrew a questioning look but Andrew just hummed in reply and Neil turned back to the girlfriend and asked a question, setting her off again.  
  
Four years.  Four years since Andrew had been nearly torn apart by terror.  Four years since he had felt that anguished need that seemed so fresh in his memory.  And yet Neil was still here.  
  
*****  
  
Dr. Martin appeared with someone Neil believed to be an intern before Katelyn had petered out, so he didn’t get a chance to ask Andrew about getting his stuff from the stadium.  Her arrival essentially shoved Neil off to the side.  Andrew’s eyes followed him as he found a new spot near the window.  Dr. Martin introduced herself to Aaron and Katelyn and reviewed all the medical stuff Neil already had heard.  They finished up with this morning’s scans, which showed resolution of the hematoma.  
  
“It’s time to discuss the next steps in Andrew’s care,” Dr. Martin said.  Neil tried not to bristle at the way they focused all their attention on Aaron and spoke about Andrew like he wasn’t there.  “While he could be ready for discharge as soon as tomorrow, he will need ongoing assistance until he can manage on his own.  Now, it’s our understanding he lives alone here in Boston.”  
  
“Yes,” Aaron said, and Neil’s fingers twitched.  He didn’t understand this shift in the dynamic.  He glanced at Andrew, whose eyes had a faint gleam that could have been amusement or irritation.  Likely both.  
  
“Ideally, Andrew should go into a rehabilitation facility for a few weeks while we assess how well he can live on his own.”  
  
“No,” Neil said, and everyone looked at him in surprise.  Everyone but Andrew, whose gleam intensified.  “He’s not going to some facility to have strangers looking after him.”  
  
“I assure you, it’s a very good facility,” Dr. Martin said.  
  
“No,” Neil said again.  
  
“Neil,” Aaron warned.  
  
“Easthaven was supposed to be a very good facility too, Aaron, in case you’ve forgotten.”  Aaron blanched and Andrew’s face went completely blank.  Neil wanted to kick himself but he plowed on.  “Andrew, I told you before.  You can come back to PSU with me if you want.  Otherwise, we can find another solution for you to stay here.”  
  
“With all due respect, Mr. Josten,” Dr. Martin said, “you have no input into this.”  
  
The ground dropped from beneath Neil’s feet.  “What?”  
  
“You have no legal say.  You’re not married and you have no legal domestic partnership.  We have been making an exception for you, allowing you to stay here, but this is not your decision.”  
  
“Is it not Andrew’s either?”  He turned to Andrew.  “Because as far as I can tell they don’t seem to care about your opinion.”  
  
“Mr. Josten.”  Dr. Martin’s voice was calm, sympathetic, but firm.  “Aaron is Andrew’s legal next of kin.  They will decide the next steps together with us.  We must ask you to respect this conversation.”  
  
“I can’t believe this.”  Neil thought he was going to vomit.  He looked between the twins.  Aaron’s expression was wary; Andrew’s held just a hint of black anger, and Neil didn’t know who that was directed at.  “We have resources in South Carolina.  We have Abby and Betsy, and the medical center’s right there.  Surely that’s better than staying with people you don’t know.”  
  
“Mr. Josten, I’m going to ask you to leave.”  
  
Katelyn stood and put her hand on Neil’s arm.  “I shouldn’t be here either,” she said gently.  “Come on, Neil.  We can wait down the hall.”  He looked once more to Andrew, but he made no move to ask him to stay, so Neil let Katelyn guide him away.  
  
Out in the waiting room he couldn’t settle, couldn’t sit.  He felt that urge to run that had long been dormant but would never truly die.  Katelyn was quiet, for once; she had murmured apologies the whole way down the hall, then fallen silent as soon as she dropped onto one of the couches.  It was the one with the threadbare corner, Neil noticed idly.  He hooked his hands behind his neck but it wasn’t the same as Andrew’s grip, it held no gravity for him.  
  
“Neil,” Katelyn said gently.  “Come and sit.”  He shook his head and walked the length of the room, noting the handful of other people scattered over seats.  One woman held a string of beads with a cross at the end, her lips moving silently.  A man wept over in one corner and Neil wondered in what way his world had just ended.  Two older people clutched each other’s hands and stared at the floor.  He turned and walked back.    
  
Katelyn joined him when he reached her.  “They shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered and there were tears in her eye.  Neil wondered why.  “Maybe we shouldn’t have come.  If we’d known…”  
  
“I’m going to go for a walk,” Neil said.    
  
“Don’t,” Katelyn pleaded.  “Don’t go, Andrew will want you here when they’re done.”  
  
Neil gave what might’ve passed for a laugh.  “Do you think if Andrew cared he would’ve let them kick me out in the first place?”  Katelyn shrugged helplessly.  “It’s not the same.  He doesn’t remember.”  
  
“I don’t know, Neil.  I’ve never understood what motivates him.  All I know is whatever he remembers, he looks at you the same way.”  
  
“What way is that?”  
  
“I don’t know…like the world begins with you.”  Neil turned away to pace again and she sighed.  “Do you have your phone?”  He reflexively checked his pockets and nodded when he felt it.  “I’ll text when they’re done.”  He nodded again and shoved through the door, running before he even reached the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Martin's kind of becoming my whipping post here but she represents the realities of how politics affect medical care. And thank you yet again for all your wonderful comments!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more softness this time, I promise.

Half of Andrew was in a hospital room in Boston; the other half was standing in a parking lot next to his GS, a bruised and battered yet unscarred Neil reaching under the driver’s seat.  Somehow the auburn hair seemed a surprise.  His mind skipped to another memory, or perhaps another part of the same one.  The roof of the dorm, the icy bite of wind, and Neil looking at him with that expression in his eyes while Andrew was swamped with fury and disbelief.  _‘The next time someone comes for you, stand down and let me deal with it.  Do you understand?’  ‘If it means losing you, then no.’_   Four years ago, he thought.  But something was happening and he thought it was now; the doctor’s voice was sharp, and Neil was leaving.  Andrew tore his eyes away from Neil’s retreating back to find Aaron looking at him calculatingly.  He didn’t know if that was another memory.  _‘I can’t trust them to bring you back.’_   He slipped his thumb under his armband and dug the nail in between his scars to help find the present.  
  
“It’s not that we’re not willing,” Aaron was saying, “it’s just that we’re gone ten, twelve hours a day.  We can’t be there for him.”  
  
“Then we need to decide if we’re going to do a facility, or a live-in nurse.  Given your brother’s needs, that might be the best option.”  
  
“Why is Palmetto off the table?” Aaron asked.  The doctors exchanged looks.  “I’m serious.  Wouldn’t it be helpful for him to be in familiar surroundings?”  
  
“I understand why you might be attached to Mr. Josten -”  
  
“Me?”  Aaron laughed.  “No.  I can barely tolerate the bastard.  But that doesn’t mean he’s not right about what’s best for Andrew.”  
  
The doctors fell silent and Aaron looked at Andrew.  “You have an opinion here?”  
  
“Just want to make sure I’m clear here,” Andrew said, gesturing at his head.  “My options are go to a nursing home -”  
  
“A rehab center.”  
  
“Because that sounds so much better.  Okay, I can go to a rehab center, I can go to my apartment with a live-in nurse, or I can drive 14 hours to South Carolina.  Yes?”  The doctor nodded.  “South Carolina.”  
  
She looked startled at his emphatic answer.  “Mr. Minyard.  Andrew.  I’m not sure you understand the benefits to staying nearby.  You will continue to need monitoring and care.”  
  
“And there aren’t neurologists in South Carolina?  Look, I might have head trauma but I’m not an idiot.”  
  
Dr. Martin started to say something then stopped and studied him for a long moment.  “I know you and Mr. Josten are close -”  
  
Aaron laughed and everybody looked at him.  “Sorry,” he said, directing the apology at Andrew before looking at Dr. Martin.  “I’m just wondering if you would use that wording if I was in that bed and we were talking about Katelyn.  Though of course if it was Katelyn you probably would’ve let her stay.  Anyway.”  He made a shooing gesture.  “Carry on.”  
  
“You kicked Neil out,” Andrew said before the doctor could reply, “so you don’t get to blame him for my decision.”  
  
There was more blustering but Andrew stared her into silence.  After a long look between the two doctors, Dr. Martin started talking about necessary arrangements.  Aaron gave her Abby’s contact information and the doctors turned to go.  “When will I be discharged?” Andrew asked before they could leave.  
  
“If you keep up like this, and can get onto oral medication for your headaches, tomorrow or Monday.”  
  
Andrew nodded and the doctors left, no doubt sighing in relief.  Aaron texted something then looked up at Andrew.  “I’m surprised you let them do that.  Kick Neil out.”  
  
Andrew shrugged, debating whether to answer.  “I was remembering something.”  Andrew saw no need to clarify that sometimes it was hard to differentiate the past and the present, and Aaron didn’t ask.    
  
The girlfriend poked her head in.  “Um, Neil went for a walk,” she said.  “I texted him but he hasn’t replied yet.”  
  
Aaron snorted.  “He’s probably off running somewhere.”  Andrew wasn’t sure why his stomach clenched, why his fingers dug into the blanket.  
  
“I figured.  If he’s not back soon I’ll go look for him,” the girlfriend said.  “Did you guys work everything out with the doctors?”  
  
“He’s going back to Palmetto,” Aaron said, and she smiled, her whole face lighting up.    
  
“Good, oh, that’s great, actually.”  She snuggled back in with Aaron in the chair and they started talking about their physiology classes.  Andrew half listened, half looked at the magazine the nurse had given him, pretending that his eyes weren’t constantly straying towards to door looking for a flash of red.    
  
*****  
  
It only took one rep of running all twelve flights of stairs and one near miss of almost crashing into a distracted intern for Neil’s mind to quiet.  He walked around in the lobby, staying away from the windows and the cluster of paparazzi he could see outside.  His phone buzzed in his pocket for the dozenth time and he pulled it out, then sat down to go through the texts.  Several from Allison, the daily check-in from Nicky, two from Matt, one from Dan, and this exasperated one from Robin.  He replied to hers first, giving her an exercise to run the arrogant assholes through to check their egos.  Technically they didn’t have practice today, but he knew with the championships coming that his core crew would be at the court anyway.  Jack might have been a dick but at least he was devoted to the sport.  
  
He scrolled through his contact list until he found Andrew’s defense line coach.  He stared at the number for a long minute before pressing it.  Coach Estrejena picked up on the first ring, and Neil’s phone buzzed at the same time.  “Coach, it’s Neil Josten.”  
  
There was a brief pause, then, “Josten.  Is Minyard able to have visitors now?”  
  
“I haven’t asked him.  That’s not why I’m calling.”  
  
“Damnit, Josten.”  
  
“I know, I know.  But I need to come get Andrew’s stuff from the stadium.”  
  
“Er, that’s not a great idea right now.”  
  
Neil sighed.  “Press?”  
  
“Yeah.  You could’ve warned us, you know.”  
  
“Sorry, Coach, but I really couldn’t.”  
  
Neil could hear Estrejena breathing through the phone.  “I guess I get that.  Okay.  Well, how about I come over with his stuff after practice, and you take the next few hours to find out if he’s up for visitors.  And by find out, I mean back the hell off and let me go in and talk to him.”  
  
“Only if he says it’s okay.”  
  
“Seriously?  I just need to talk to him.”  
  
“I don’t give a shit about what you think you need, Coach.  Sorry.”  
  
“You’re a real asshole, Josten.”  
  
“That’s one word for it.  I’ll see you this afternoon.”  
  
His phone buzzed again just as he was hanging up.  The first message was from Katelyn, that the doctors were done dictating Andrew’s fate; the second was from Aaron.  _Where tf are you?_  
  
He set his phone face down on his knee for a minute that turned into ten as he watched the people coming and going around him.  Rationally he knew that delaying learning the decision would not impact the actual outcome but for a while it seemed easier just not to know.  Finally he flipped his phone over.  _Lobby.  I’ll come up_  
  
_Don’t bother the OT just came in I’ll come down and get a coffee_  
  
Neil wondered what the OT was while he waited.  Aaron and Katelyn appeared and he joined them in their walk to the coffee shop.  “So he’s going with you,” Aaron said as soon as he joined them.  Neil was startled to feel prickling in his eyes and he looked down.  “Yeah, he didn’t even hesitate.”    
  
Katelyn gave his arm a squeeze and he nodded and cleared his throat.  “Glad that’s settled.  What’s the OT?”  
  
“Occupational Therapist,” Katelyn answered.  “That Ben guy?”  
  
Neil stopped dead, surprising the others.  “I don’t know who that is.”  There was a weird pounding noise and muffled yelling that Neil could barely hear over the roaring in his ears.  
  
“Don’t worry, the guy’s cool,” Aaron said.  “He gets it.  He’s making sure Andrew can do like, basic things before he goes.  Showering and stuff.”  
  
“You left him alone with some guy he doesn’t know?” The pounding got louder.  
  
“It’s fine, Neil,” Katelyn said.  Neil was already turning towards the stairs.  
  
Aaron made an exasperated noise.  “Neil, Andrew basically - ugh, fuck these people.”  
  
Neil looked over to see that the pounding and yelling was the paparazzi banging on the windows.  He hadn’t realized they had gotten that close to the entrance.  Aaron was already moving to the door and people lifted cameras to their faces in a wave of movement.  He strode through the automatic doors and yelled, “Wrong fucking Minyard, assholes!” before spinning on his heel and coming back.  Katelyn covered her mouth in her hands, her shoulders shaking; Neil wondered if he was supposed to do something for her.  Aaron got back to them with a disgusted expression and Katelyn dropped her hands, revealing bright, sparkling laughter.  Neil’s opinion of her went up several notches and he couldn’t help but grin.  
  
Aaron went on like nothing had happened.  “Anyway, Andrew basically booted us out.  He didn’t want us there when he was showering.”  
  
“I don’t care, I’m going back up there.”    
  
Aaron just shrugged in response.  “Do you want anything?” Katelyn asked.  Neil shook his head and headed towards the stairs.  
  
Andrew’s door was closed and he practically burst through.  He could hear the shower running and there was a man in scrubs standing in the bathroom doorway, leaning against the jamb holding a towel.  He flashed Neil a big smile when he came in.  “You must be the boyfriend, huh?” he said, holding out his hand.  Neil stared at it in confusion.  “I’m Ben, I’m making sure your man doesn’t kill himself trying to shave or some shit.”  
  
Neil took his hand hesitantly.  “Hi.  Neil.”  
  
“Yeah, I know, man.  I heard from one of the residents you two are some big time athletes or something huh?”  
  
“Or something.”  
  
Ben gave an easy laugh.  “I’m not really into exy, more of a basketball guy myself.  But he says you’re hella good, I’ll have to check out one of your games.”  The water cut off.  “Hey, man, how’s it going in there?  Ready for a towel?”  When he got the affirmative he tossed the towel up, Neil presumed into the shower.  “Now, it’s your choice, man.  I can let you put a hospital johnny on yourself, or I can give you some sweats but you’ll have to let me make sure you can put the pants on safely.”  
  
“Fuck off, I can put pants on,” came Andrew’s voice.  
  
“Yeah, man, everybody says that but then you lose your balance, hit your head on the toilet or some shit, and you’re stuck here for another month and I lose my job, right?”  There was a long pause.  “So what is it, sweats or the dress?”  
  
“Give me the fucking sweats.”    
  
Ben glanced at Neil.  “I’m gonna close this door partway, okay?”  There was some low muttering and Ben’s booming laugh, then the door swung open.  “Now, you wanna shave or are you going to go for some hipster bald-with-a-beard look?”  
  
“My choices are cancer patient or balding hipster.  Fantastic.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Neil interjected.  “I think your beard and hair are growing back at about the same rate.  You can go full-on hipster in a few months.”  Ben laughed at the flat look Andrew gave him and Neil couldn’t fully bite back his grin.  
  
Andrew held out his hand and Ben dropped a razor in it.  Neil had watched him shave plenty of times before; for some reason he always kind of liked it.  It was one of the things Andrew was meticulous about, unlike Neil who would run the razor haphazardly over his face while making coffee or getting dressed and was always finding random spots he’d missed.  And apparently this was one thing that hadn’t been lost; he always started on the left side and worked his way across, then down over his throat; always the same pattern, the same facial expressions, the same flicks of his wrist over the edge of his jaw.  
  
“Staring,” Andrew said when their eyes met in the mirror.  Neil didn’t look away and Andrew returned to the task at hand, though his eyes kept returning to Neil’s.  
  
“Congratulations,” Ben said when he took the razor back.  “You can officially shower, put pants on, and not cut your throat with a razor.”  
  
“It’s an electric razor.”  
  
“No kidding.”    
  
They ended up walking laps afterwards, mostly because Andrew was bored and Ben had a little time.  Aaron and Katelyn had returned and stayed in the room to study.  Neil walked silently along with them, more surprised than he should have been when they began debating the merits of Isaac Asimov.  He knew Andrew was widely read, despite his odd aversion to libraries, but he had never heard anyone argue that Asimov’s books were all inherently sexist before.  Then again, he had never read Asimov.  At least he’d heard of him.  He smiled to himself; it reminded him of debates they’d had with Renee those first couple years at PSU.  
  
Back at the room Ben promised to bring by a book before he left for the night.  Katelyn and Aaron were piled in the chair again and Neil eyeballed the window ledge until Andrew scooted over in the bed, making room.  He rolled his eyes at Neil’s unspoken question and Neil settled in next to him, leaving one leg off so there were a few inches of space between them.  He pulled out his phone and went back through his texts.  “Hey, Allison sent us Coach’s press conference from yesterday.”    
  
He pressed play and held the phone so Andrew could see easily.  It was…a disaster.  All the reporters wanted to know was what the situation was with Andrew and Neil.  They tried a dozen different ways of asking but Wymack just stared at them and asked if they had any questions related to exy.  Eventually they moved onto the upcoming game, and everything seemed to be going smoothly until one reporter asked, “What do you have to say about Josten’s tirade against the reporter?”  
  
“I think the kid summed it up pretty well.  Any more questions about the championships?  No?  Good.”  He turned and walked away to a chorus of his name.  
  
Aaron had been listening and he shook his head at the end.  “I pity whoever is your PR person next year, Josten.”  
  
Andrew twisted his fingers in Neil’s sleeve and Neil almost jolted at the contact  “Your team is going to have to double the salary of whoever draws that short straw.”  
  
“What, like you’re any better?  You had to have something in your contract demanding you sign autographs.”  
  
That subtle flicker of humor lit Andrew’s eyes and Neil had to fight the urge to ask to kiss him.  “At least I’m a silent pain in the ass.  You always give them a sound bite that gets blasted all over the internet.”  
  
Neil shrugged and looked over at Aaron.  “At least I didn’t just call them a bunch of assholes.”  Katelyn started laughing again and Neil joined in until Andrew’s fingers twisting tighter demanded the story.  Neil and Katelyn told it in tandem and Andrew shook his head at the end of it.  
  
“You’re all idiots,” he said, but his knee ended up against Neil’s and Neil couldn’t have stopped smiling if he tried.  
  
*****  
  
Coach Estrejena showed up near the end of visiting hours, not that those had been enforced once the entire week.  Neil had warned Andrew during the afternoon, but he found he didn’t really care either way.  He remembered his defense line coach, as well as the rest of his team, at least superficially.    
  
Neil had gotten to his feet at the knock on the door.  The coach set a duffel down at the foot of the bed and surveyed the room, his eyes lingering on the girlfriend in a way that had Aaron bristling.  “It’s a right party in here, huh?” he said finally.  
  
The girlfriend introduced herself and Aaron nervously and the coach had the good sense to look at Andrew before something unpleasant happened.  Well, unpleasant for him.  Andrew thought it might be rather amusing if he continued to push Aaron’s buttons.  Everyone had always thought he was the only dangerous Minyard; he wondered if that was still true, or if Aaron also had to live under that cloud of suspicion.  
  
“Glad to see you’re awake,” Coach said, and Andrew refocused.  “And that your guard dog let me in.”  
  
“Why did you want to see me?” Andrew asked, sure he knew the answer.  He wondered if Coach would beat around the bush or not.  
  
“Just wanted to make sure you were okay.  That was a hell of a hit.”  But he wouldn’t quite meet Andrew’s eyes and Neil picked up on it.  
  
“What the fuck are you trying to say?” Neil asked.  
  
Estrejena gave him a scathing look that Neil met with his own version.  “Minyard, call off your dog.”  
  
“No,” Andrew said.  “He’s quite useful at cutting through bullshit.”  
  
There was silence in the room.  Aaron leaned forward in the chair, looking from the coach to Andrew.  Neil stood poised at Andrew’s shoulder, braced to throw Estrejena out completely if needed.  The coach may have been six inches taller and a good fifty pounds heavier, but Andrew’s money was on Neil if it came down to it.  
  
As expected, the coach broke first.  “We’re just wondering what the doctors have told you.”  
  
“They’ve told me a lot of things.  What specific information are you looking for?”  He knew it, he knew it, but he wanted to make him say it.  
  
Estrejena looked at the floor before dragging his eyes up to Andrew’s cheek.  “Are you expected to make a full recovery?”  
  
Neil exploded, and Estrejena took a big step back.  “Are you fucking kidding me?  Are you seriously asking if he’s going to play again a week after he got a skull fracture on your fucking court?”  
  
Aaron was on his feet, and Andrew couldn’t tell if he was planning to stop Neil or help him if he went after the coach.  Estrejena held up his hands like he was warding off a wild animal.  
  
“I just…We need to know if we need to look for a new goalie for next season.”  
  
And there it was.  
  
The past two days in the quiet moments, the question had been chasing him.  He had never had Neil’s all-consuming passion for the game, nor Kevin’s unwavering dedication.  Though his memories of the past five years were scant, several of them involved him sitting silent in the bleachers while they perfected their game; eating every damn thing Kevin told him to avoid; mocking them for their single-mindedness, especially Neil.  He had fought every attempt by those two idiots to drag him over to that dark side.    
  
He hadn’t succeeded.  
  
Not that he would ever be like them, and let the sport take over every waking moment.  But there was satisfaction in being the best.  There was pride in being the one that everyone on the team looked to be the final defense.  So help him, he was almost happy on that court, when the racquet reverberated with the force of the ball, when he could read the striker’s eyes and beat them to the corner, when he slammed a pass down the court to where only his striker could get it.  Where only Neil could get it.    
  
_There are three things in the world I don’t want to lose_.  It was so loud in his head at first he was afraid he had said it aloud.  After all, some manifestation of all three things were in this room right now.  He looked from the coach to Aaron then slowly up at Neil.  The expression in those crystal eyes told him that he already knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting close to the end here. I wanted to thank you guys for all your thoughtful comments and for sticking through this ride with me. I love hearing from you, even if I just ruined your day!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to do just one long last chapter but I decided to split it. So this is the second to last, and Katelyn again proves she's awesome, Aaron tries to explain why he's kind of an asshole, and Andrew reveals more than he means to.

Neil calculated the odds of getting away with a murder in an actual hospital.  They weren’t good.  No matter how justified it was.    
  
Nobody should be allowed to cause that look in Andrew’s eyes.  Neil doubted anybody else recognized it.  He was used to people being blind to Andrew’s vulnerabilities, though how they could miss it so consistently was beyond him.    
  
The silence stretched to the point of being awkward.  Andrew’s attention had returned to the coach after that quick glance at Aaron and Neil, his expression back to blank but his fingers still clenched in the blanket.  Finally, the coach broke it, shuffling his feet and mumbling, “I know this isn’t the best timing, but I really need an answer.”  
  
That was enough.  Neil lunged forward, grabbing the front of the coach’s jacket and shoving him out of the room, then down the hall.  “What the fuck is wrong with you,” he snarled once they were finally out of earshot of Andrew’s room.  There were several nurses nearby, and two of them took cautious steps towards the pair.  Neil ignored them, just as he ignored the way the coach’s eyes darted around, looking everywhere but at Neil’s face.    
  
“The owners want to cut him at the end of the season,” Estrejena finally said quietly.  “I want us to keep him, but I can’t win that argument unless I know he can come back.”  
  
“They’re idiots,” Neil snapped.  “He’s your best player.  Why the hell do they want to cut him?”  
  
“Liability,” came Andrew’s voice behind him.  Neil whipped around to see Andrew standing there calmly in gray sweats with the MGH logo, Aaron stone-faced next to him.  “Right?”  One of the nurses fluttered over to him but he waved her away.  “I’m right.”  
  
Estrejena sighed.  “Yeah, you’re right.  The lawyers are up our asses about it.  They’re worried if you take another blow to the head and it causes permanent damage you can sue them.  I mean, your shitty attitude doesn’t really help your cause, and…” He trailed off with a glance at Neil.  
  
“And what?”  Andrew’s tone was dangerous; Neil hadn’t heard that note in his voice in a long time but Estrejena didn’t seem surprised by it.  
  
The coach waved his hand dismissively.  “Nothing.  You really don’t know what the, er, prognosis is?”  
  
“You better get yourself a new goalie,” Andrew said, turning away and beckoning to Neil.  “There’s no way I can be ready for the start of the season.  And I won’t play for owners who are going to hold my sexuality against me.”  Neil was rooted to the spot; he couldn’t believe how many things his presence had fucked up for Andrew in such a short amount of time.  
  
“I didn’t say that,” Estrejena said, his face reddening.  
  
“You didn’t have to.”  Andrew looked at the coach over his shoulder.  “I know it’s not you, anyway.  I looked up what charities the owners have donated to after I signed.  Should’ve done it before but,” he shrugged.  His eyes shifted to Neil, a subtle question in them, and Neil forced his legs to move.    
  
“You could probably sue them for wrongful termination,” Aaron said as they walked back to the room, loudly enough for Estrejena and the nurses and, well, everyone to hear.  “Isn’t Massachusetts one of the states with anti-discrimination laws?”  
  
Neil glanced back down the hall as they reached the door.  Estrejena was staring at the floor, his face distraught.  He was almost pitiable.  Almost.    
  
The duffel was waiting for them.  Andrew got comfortable on the bed again while Neil dumped out the contents.  Andrew’s knives in their box, his phone, dead of course, his keys, his street clothes.  “Where are your armbands?”  
  
“Who knows?  Maybe the hospital has them.  You want yours back?”  
  
Neil shook his head as he turned back to the pile.  A Snickers that he tossed at Andrew.  A beat-to-hell paperback copy of Foucault’s Pendulum.  “Seriously?” he asked Andrew, who shrugged as he bit into the candy bar.  “Is it any good?”    
  
“I don’t remember.”  
  
And damn, if that didn’t make him feel worse.   
  
*****  
  
The grumbling of Neil’s stomach was audible from across the room.  “Junkie,” Andrew said, and Neil looked up at him with an odd expression.  “Staring at the phone isn’t going to make it charge any faster.”  Neil sighed and dropped the phone on the window ledge, but he didn’t come over to join Andrew on the bed.  
  
“What have you eaten today?” the girlfriend asked, and Neil looked at her blankly.    
  
“Um, I had that donut.”  All three of them stared at him.    
  
“Go eat something, you idiot,” Aaron said.  “Jesus, Coach is going to kill you.”  
  
Neil looked at Andrew, who stared back.  He didn’t remember Neil having issues with food, other than his baffling dislike of anything that actually tasted good.  “What, are you waiting until you actually pass out?  Because the doctors are going to have a field day with that one.”  Neil rolled his eyes but the inexplicable tightness in his face softened slightly.  Evidently there were a few things that needed clarification but that was a conversation that could wait until Aaron had left.  
  
After Neil disappeared, Aaron said mildly, “Out of all the men in this world, why did you have to end up with one who’s too stupid to feed himself?”  It was a throwaway comment, made while he was scribbling in a notebook.  Yet somehow it triggered a thousand different memories, a thousand different comments; images of Nicky’s attempt at a smile that never reached his eyes, of Neil and Aaron snarling at each other in the locker room, of his own fingers wrapped around his brother’s throat, of Bee getting between them to referee.  
  
There was a tray of food in front of him by the time he was done integrating that, and he watched Aaron and the girlfriend study while he ate, leaving the impressively soggy green beans behind.  “Is your issue more with Neil or with me?” Andrew finally asked, startling Aaron away from his anatomy notes.  
  
Aaron flushed a dark red.  “I don’t have an issue,” he said.  Andrew just looked at him.  “I don’t.”  
  
“You said this morning you can barely tolerate Neil, but I seem to remember you having a problem with Nicky and me as well.”  
  
“That was a long time ago,” Aaron said quietly.  The girlfriend squeezed his arm and he glanced at her, then Andrew before looking down at his hands.  “Shit.  It makes sense you don’t remember us talking about this.”  He rubbed his face, and his next words were slightly muffled.  “It’s different, actually.  The thing with Nicky and the thing with you.”  
  
He met Andrew’s eyes and his face was more open than Andrew remembered.  “Nicky, he just would never shut up.  I mean, half of what he said would’ve pissed me off if he’d been talking about girls.  And listening to him going on and on about Neil’s ass or Matt’s dick, I just didn’t need to hear about my teammates that way.   
  
“And with you?  You’re my identical twin, Andrew.”  He spread his hands.  “Do you see what I’m saying?”  
  
Andrew thought about it for a moment, fingers tapping on his knees.  “So you think because we share genetics, either I’m wrong about being gay or you’re wrong about being straight?”  
  
“Well, I don’t think that now, but yeah.  And I wasn’t exactly thrilled with either option.”  
  
“But it’s not that simple.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“You’re a biochem major, isn’t there a difference between genetic potential and gene expression?”  
  
Aaron’s eyes narrowed.  “Yes, but why you would know that I have no idea.  You were a criminology major.”  
  
Andrew shrugged.  “I went to high school.”  Aaron snorted.  “And it’s not the only way we’re different that can’t be accounted for by our shitty childhoods.  I mean, I’m bipolar and you’re not.”  
  
“Wait,” the girlfriend said, and for once her voice didn’t sound like bubblegum tasted.  “I did not just hear you equate your sexuality with a mental illness.”  Both Aaron and Andrew stared at her and she held Andrew’s eyes, though her teeth worried her lower lip.  Aaron started to smile and laced his fingers through hers.    
  
Neil entered, clearly with his mind elsewhere, and pulled up abruptly when he took in the scene.  “What’s going on?” he asked warily.  
  
Andrew ignored the question and reached for the book Neil had dropped on the bed earlier.    
  
“Nothing much,” the girlfriend said, clearly still upset.  “Just your boyfriend comparing being gay with being bipolar.”  
  
“Seriously?” Neil said, looking at Andrew and crossing his arms.  “I’m looking forward to seeing how you talk your way out of this one.”  
  
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Andrew said, not looking up from the book though the letters on the page were completely unintelligible to him at that moment.  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”  
  
“I wasn’t here,” Neil reminded him.  “I don’t know anything.”  
  
Aaron started to say something snarky but the girlfriend pinched his wrist and shushed him.    
  
Andrew flipped the page in an exaggerated motion.  Neil muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “drama queen” but he came and settled onto the empty edge of the bed, not quite so careful to leave an adequate gap.  It allowed Andrew to let his knee rest ever so gently against Neil’s without having to move.    
  
The book disappeared from his hands and he glared at Neil, who looked back, unimpressed, while he tucked the book under his leg.  “Care to explain?”  Andrew gritted his teeth briefly then relaxed his features.  
  
“Ooh, saved by the bell,” muttered Aaron.  A flicker of confusion rippled over Neil’s face, followed immediately by a hard mask Andrew recognized from a memory when the doctor and a nurse walked in.  Katelyn and Aaron straightened up in the chair, but Neil remained conspicuously stretched out next to Andrew.    
  
Dr. Martin looked nervous but she somehow managed to keep the condescension in her voice.  “We’ve talked with Abby Winfield as you requested,” she said, looking fixedly at Andrew.  “She assured us that she will be able to aid you in your recovery, and we emailed her the recommended rehabilitation program.  According to your chart you’ve only had the oral medication today, is that right?”  Andrew nodded.  “What time did you take the last pill?”  
  
“With dinner, I don’t know, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes ago?”“What is your pain right now on a scale of one to ten?”  It was one of the questions they asked him every. damn. time.  Ten was supposed to be the worst pain imaginable, and the problem was that he had a very good imagination.  When he had vomited shortly after rating his pain at a seven a few days ago he had subsequently been instructed to make that his ten but it was stupid, he knew there was worse pain possible than that.  
  
“Three.”  
  
“And what was the worst your pain has reached today?”  
  
“Three.”  
  
She nodded, satisfied.  “Well, according to the physical therapist and the occupational therapist, you should be able to be discharged, though we will request you continue to work with therapists throughout this process.”  
  
“Abby was a physical therapist before she became a nurse practitioner,” Aaron interjected.    
  
Dr. Martin seemed unimpressed with that information, but nodded in acknowledgement.  “Now, how will you be getting to South Carolina?  You can’t fly.”  
  
“No shit,” said Neil, and she was forced to look at him.  “I’m driving us.”  She nodded again, and it was really quite amusing how hard this acquiescence was for her.  They reviewed more details and Andrew listened just enough to be sure to remember, the other half of him thinking about what it was going to be like finally being away from these four walls.  It would only be a week tomorrow, but it felt like he had always been here, that the rest of his life had been something he’d seen in a movie or read in a book.  Like this was the only part that was real.  
  
It was always like that, though.  Every time he had ended up in a new place, it felt like that was the only possible reality.  Each foster home, juvie, Tilda’s, Nicky’s.  No matter how vivid his memories were, it felt as if they were happening to an alternate Andrew in an alternate universe and he was just watching.  He remembered that Bee had told him — or a previous version of him — that it was a coping mechanism.  Maybe she was right.  Or maybe he was, and maybe time didn’t flow consecutively, we just thought it did because of the way the universes lined up and saw each other.  Maybe the way his memories were coming back, in fits and starts, chunks from all different scenes that didn’t flow together - maybe that was how it really went.  Like how a movie was filmed, the ending before the beginning, the middle broken up into thirty second pieces, but all somehow cut together to make sense.  Maybe our lives were really just entertainment for some higher being.  
  
The doctor was making notes on her tablet when Neil looked at him and smiled that stupid smile, the one that always made Andrew’s breath catch just a little, and Andrew nudged him with his knee.  Neil’s smile broadened, then Dr. Martin started speaking again and Neil turned back to her.    
  
Andrew’s movie had never been destined for a happy ending, he’d always known that, but right now he didn’t care.  Right now he’d take this scene in the middle, the auburn-haired, blue-eyed lull in the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of sad this is almost done, and I love all your wonderful comments and support! (I'm sorry I'm so far behind responding, I promise I'll do better. Just know I've read them all and they give me life!)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, this is the end for now. I hope you've enjoyed the ride as much as I have! There is some mildly NSFW talk, nothing graphic.

Ben the occupational therapist showed up with a slim book just as the doctors were leaving.  He bumped fists with them, then Neil, then offered one to Andrew who stared at his closed hand but didn’t move.  “Hey, man, brought you a book,” he said with an easy smile.  “Not the one I was telling you about though.  I forgot I had this one here.”  
  
Neil looked at the cover as Ben held it out.  _Chronicle of a Death Foretold_ , by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Andrew took it reluctantly.  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said.  “I won’t have time to read it.”  
  
“I know, man, I’ve gotta be here to make sure you’re ready to discharge.  It’s cool, though, you can keep it.  Or you can start it and see how great it is and decide to get your own copy.”  
  
“I have it,” Neil said, and Andrew looked at him with poorly-disguised surprise.  “But in Spanish.  It’s pretty funny.  I mean, kind of morbid humor, but still.”  
  
“I don’t know what I’m more astonished by,” Andrew said dryly.  “That you’ve read a book I haven’t, or that you actually have a sense of humor.”  
  
Neil rolled his eyes and bumped Andrew’s shoulder with his own.  “I like Garcia Marquez.  His books feel kind of…mystical.”  
  
“Yeah, man,” Ben said with a blinding grin.  “It’s cool, right?”  Neil grinned back, he couldn’t help it.  “Anyway, catch you guys tomorrow.”    
  
With a nod at Katelyn and Aaron, Ben strolled out.  They left not soon after with a promise to be there bright and early in the morning to smooth out Andrew’s discharge.  Neil debated if he should move to the chair but Andrew seemed unbothered by his presence on the bed so he stayed, soaking in the warmth where their legs brushed each other.  
  
Before Andrew could get too deep in the book, Neil cleared his throat.  “What happened earlier?  With Katelyn and the whole bipolar thing?”  
  
Andrew put the book down with an ostentatious sigh.  “Aaron was bitching about how he didn’t understand how if sexuality was genetic, he could be straight and I could be gay.  So I pulled the only other example I could think of of how we’re different that couldn’t be totally explained by differences in circumstance.  And she deliberately misunderstood.”  
  
Neil thought about that while Andrew returned to his reading.  He suspected Andrew didn’t remember, or really had never been willing to acknowledge, how much Katelyn had influenced Aaron’s willingness to accept the pair of them.  That wasn’t a discussion he wanted to have now, regardless.    
  
His eyes caught on Andrew’s phone, still plugged into the wall.  He hopped off the bed and snagged it, unplugging the cord and stuffing it in the duffel, then rejoined Andrew and turned the phone on.  It took forever for the messages to download, and he used the time to text Wymack about the tentative plan for the next day.    
  
Andrew grabbed his phone from where it sat on Neil’s stomach once it had finished.  He scrolled quickly through his texts, not replying, then switched to his full voicemail box and played them on speaker.  There were a dozen messages from his agent, steadily increasing in franticness, and a few from the Foxes.  He clicked the phone off and handed it to Neil, then settled back with his eyes closed.  
  
“Your head okay?”  
  
The way Andrew hesitated before he nodded meant no, but Neil wasn’t going to push him.  Once Andrew’s breathing leveled out, Neil slipped off the bed and turned the lights down, then curled up in his chair, watching the rise and fall of Andrew’s chest until he too fell asleep.  
  
He was startled awake by Andrew sitting up abruptly, drawing his knees up to his chest.  “Hey,” Neil said, and Andrew turned in his direction, his eyes almost black in the dim light.  “Nightmare?”  
  
“Not exactly,” Andrew said raggedly.  Oh.  _Oh_.  The last time this had happened had ended rather well for Neil, but he was pretty certain that level of exertion was off the table at the moment.  Neil let his hand rest on the bed but Andrew ignored it and he pulled it back after a moment.    
  
“How does it work?” Andrew asked after a long enough silence Neil had almost fallen back to sleep. Neil looked at him blankly and Andrew gestured between them.  “I’m remembering things but I can’t tell if they’re real.”  
  
Neil tried to figure out how to answer; a difficult task when he wasn’t precisely sure what Andrew was asking.  “What do you mean, sex?” he asked finally.  
  
“I’m not asking about the mechanics.”  
  
Neil laughed a little.  “I figured.”  He thought about how to explain the intricate dance that they had taught each other over the past four years.  “We ask.  We read each other’s moods.  It took a long time to be okay, and sometimes it’s still not.  A lot of days it’s just kissing, or sitting near each other, or lately FaceTiming.  Just…being together.  It’s all good.”    
  
“And you’re okay with it.”  There was an undercurrent of something, almost anger but not quite anger, that Neil couldn’t put a finger on.  
  
“Yes, Drew.  More than okay.”  He watched Andrew curl into himself and it broke his heart.  “What did you remember?”  
  
He didn’t actually expect Andrew to answer him, and certainly didn’t expect the huskiness that had crept into his voice when he did.  “It was at Eden’s.  We were in the back room and you were blowing me.”  
  
Neil nodded, trying to keep his tone casual.  “That was a good night.”  It could’ve been one of several but it wasn’t a lie, they had all been good.  
  
“Were you drunk?”  
  
“No.  You never let me if I had more than one.”  Andrew hummed in response; his face was still taut.  “What’s bothering you?”  
  
The almost-anger was lurking again when Andrew met his eyes.  “What was bothering you earlier?”  
  
Neil wasn’t surprised that Andrew had noticed, only that he hadn’t asked earlier.  “I hate that my being here has kind of ruined things for you,” he said softly.    
  
“What the fuck are you talking about?”  
  
“I’ve pissed off your doctors, I outed us and somehow made the national news, your agent sounds like he’s about to quit, and now your team wants to cut you partly because of me.  And don’t tell me you don’t care about exy because I know you do.”  
  
Andrew rolled his eyes and moved over in the bed, making room.  Neil hesitated.  “Don’t be an idiot,” Andrew said, and Neil joined him.  “Fuck the team.  And my agent.  If they can’t handle me getting hurt or being out, or any of the rest of it, then I’ll find a team that can.”  
  
“You want to play again?”  Neil knew the answering shrug was a yes.  They sat together in the semi-darkness in silence, and slowly the tension left Andrew’s body.  “Did you like it?”  Neil couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice.  “The memory?”  
  
Andrew shoved his shoulder hard enough that if Neil had worse reflexes he would’ve fallen off the bed.  As it was he had to grab the bedrail to prevent it.  “Go back to sleep, junkie.  You have a lot of driving tomorrow.”  Grinning, Neil pulled the chair closer and did as he was told, not at all unhappy that this would be his last night sleeping in the goddamn thing.  In twenty four hours, if all went to plan, he would be pulling into Abby’s driveway, bringing his home back home.  
  
*****  
  
He had known Neil for less than a week.  He had known him for four and a half years.  Strange how both things could be true.  
  
There was still an ache in his abdomen from the dream or the memory or whatever it was.  It was hard to believe it wasn’t just a fantasy, but Neil had seemed utterly unfazed when Andrew had told him.  And seeing Neil on his knees… He didn’t understand how all he had felt was the pleasure.  He wondered where the fear had gone.  
  
It felt like Neil was a riddle set in front of him by an invisible sphinx.  Or one of those unsolvable equations, the kind that can be studied for years by the brightest minds in the world and remain a mystery.  How Neil could be content with the inconsistent scraps that were all Andrew had to offer.  How the runaway he remembered could stand his ground so fiercely.  How something that shouldn’t have been possible, shouldn’t have been real, was so tangible.  
  
How he could make Andrew feel something that should’ve been hate, but wasn’t.  
  
The next morning was chaos.  He had barely finished eating when the doctor came in and did her assessment, then Nancy for the PT.  Now that his headaches were manageable he didn’t have any issues with his balance, but it was kind of irritating how much strength and flexibility he’d lost in a week.  Aaron and the girlfriend showed up while he was walking the halls, settling in to study in his room like it was a library.    
  
Ben greeted Neil with a fist bump, Andrew with a nod and a cheerful, “Hey, man, Dr. A sent me links to a couple of your games from last year.  You two are freakin’ crazy, man, that shit is wild!”  Neil turned pink around his scarring and said something conventional in response and Aaron looked up from his chair with something like resentment on his face.  Andrew wondered if Ben even realized Aaron had been on that court too.  
  
Andrew shaved under Ben’s watchful eye.  Neil watched with that damn expression before getting shut out so Andrew could shower.  Putting on his street clothes was a relief, another sign that this reality was ending and a new one beginning.  
  
Then came the endless paperwork.  Neil promising to pull over every two hours and take Andrew for a walk like a puppy.  Aaron refusing to sign anything, turning it all over to Andrew and Neil.  A packet of discharge instructions and physical therapy exercises.  Orders to have a CT scan in six weeks to see if his skull had healed.  A bag of medicine handed to Aaron, who promptly gave it to Neil with an impressive eye roll.  And then waiting for the final processing.  
  
Aaron and Katelyn went down ahead to get coffee for the road.  Andrew sat in the chair, Neil on the edge of the bed.  A nurse had to wheel Andrew down, evidently.  More idiotic hospital policy.  
  
He realized abruptly that Neil was watching him with an unfathomable expression.  “What.”  
  
“What’s that song?”  
  
“What song?”  
  
“The one you were singing.  I’ve never heard you sing before.”  
  
It took all of his willpower not to gape at Neil.  “I was singing?”  Neil nodded, forehead crinkled.  “What the fuck was I singing?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Neil said patiently.  “That’s why I was asking.”    
  
Andrew sighed.  “Can you give me a clue here?  How did it go?”  
  
Neil looked self-conscious.  “Um, I don’t know how to sing.”  Andrew waited, and Neil bit his lip before he acquiesced.  “I think the last couple lines went like this:  
  
“ _Nobody said it was easy_  
_No one ever said it would be this hard_  
_Take me back to the start_  
  
“Or something like that.”  
  
Andrew took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew it out through his mouth.  “Coldplay.  I was singing fucking Coldplay?”  He refused to comment on the fact that for someone who claimed not to know how to sing, and who rarely listened to music, Neil actually sang quite well.  Though given that Neil spoke something like three or four languages and could flip between accents in the span of a sentence, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised.  “I can’t believe I was singing Coldplay.  My subconscious hates me.”  
  
“I liked it.”  
  
“You would.”  He was pleased with the level of disdain he got into the two words, but the idiot just smiled at him in response.  “Junkie.”  Neil laughed.  
  
A nurse appeared with a wheelchair.  Before Andrew got in the chair he snagged the book Ben had loaned him and the pen that had been sitting on his nightstand.  He’d gotten far enough into it to know he did in fact want his own copy, so he flipped to the title page and wrote at the top, _Thanks for easing the boredom of a crazy exy player_ , then signed his name below.  
  
Neil didn’t comment but his expression said enough.  Andrew allowed himself to be wheeled into the elevator and partway through the lobby, but when he caught sight of the huge wall of windows with a handful of people with cameras outside he dropped his feet and forced the nurse to stop.  “This is far enough.”  
  
“I’m supposed to see you out of the building.”  
  
“You brought me to the lobby.  Pretend you got me to the parking garage and I walked back in if you have to.  I am not going past those assholes in a wheelchair.”  
  
She followed his eyes.  “Oh.  Okay.  Yeah, I didn’t really think about that.”  Neil thanked her and Andrew gave her a nod as he got up out of the chair.  She wished them luck and stood there watching as they began to cross the lobby.  Aaron and the girlfriend spotted them and walked over with a tray of coffees and a bag of pastries Andrew hoped they were planning on sharing.    
  
A muscle was twitching in Neil’s jaw as they passed in front of the windows and the banging started.  Aaron gave the paps the filthiest look he could muster, and the girlfriend just kept her eyes straight ahead, her free hand on Aaron’s arm.  They were halfway along the bank of windows when Andrew stopped.  Neil turned to face him, a question in his eyes.  
  
All Andrew could think of was last night, Neil’s voice catching as he whispered, “ _I hate that my being here has ruined things for you_.”  Of a few days ago, the anxious excitement in Neil’s face as he showed him the video of the confrontation with the reporter.  Of Allison’s bitchy texts and Wymack’s press conference and Estrejena’s red-faced confession.  
  
“Yes or no?” he asked, and Neil’s face lit up until it almost hurt to look at.  
  
“Really?” Neil asked, stepping a little closer and glancing at the windows.  “Now?”  
  
“Yes or no, junkie.”  
  
“Yes,” Neil breathed, “always yes.”  Andrew hooked one hand into the neck of Neil’s jacket and tugged him down.  
  
The kiss was almost savage at first; a clash of lips and teeth, an explosion of desperate need.  Neil met his mouth with equal force, not giving under the onslaught.  It had never occurred to Andrew that perhaps Neil’s need matched his own.    
  
Once the harsh edges were worn off the kiss, it was almost overwhelming.  Andrew’s free hand found its way up to the back of Neil’s neck, the fingers embedding themselves into the short softness of his hair.  Only that hand was keeping him on his feet; without it he would fall and keep on falling.  
  
He didn’t know how much time had passed before more muffled banging and yells intruded.  Without breaking the kiss he released Neil’s jacket and extended that hand towards the windows, middle finger raised.  Neil pulled back just a fraction to see what he was doing, then huffed a laugh against his lips that Andrew swallowed with another kiss.  
  
The lobby erupted when they finally broke apart.  Aaron was watching with a small smile playing on his lips; the girlfriend’s was blinding.  Neil looked flushed, dazed, almost drunk as he turned to follow them out to their car.  Andrew knew how he felt.  He kept a hold on Neil’s sleeve for balance as they walked.  The girlfriend glanced back at them, her eyes tear-bright.  “If you think that’s not going viral,” Neil murmured in his ear.  
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
He felt the ghost of Neil’s lips against his temple.  “Let’s go home, Drew.”  
  
Home.  Andrew tightened his grip on Neil’s sleeve, not needing to tell him he was already there.

 

* * *

 

 

I just needed to add a link to [this ](https://rainbowd00dles.tumblr.com/post/173190570126/fic-art-for-back-to-the-start-by)incredible piece of fan art by @rainbowd00dles on Tumblr of the last scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized as I was posting this that the title of the book Ben gives Andrew might be misunderstood. I'm not playing fortune teller with this; I picked it for two reasons. One is, I love it and thought it was something both Neil and Andrew would appreciate, and the other is that it is nonlinear and the structure reminds me of how Andrew described life in the previous chapter. 
> 
> Also, credit to Coldplay for the lyrics, it comes from the song The Scientist. I hadn't heard the song in years but somehow ended up with it in my head when I was plotting out this fic, hence that scene and the title. (And the random singing thing happened to me after my TBI, only I kept singing Beatles songs.)
> 
> Thank you again for all the comments and for sticking with me through the ups and downs, it means so much!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and feedback greatly appreciated! HMU at my Tumblr @fuzzballsheltiepants to chat anytime!


End file.
